Pending payments: SHC reserves verdict on paying salaries to ‘illegally’ appointed teachers

Teachers claim the SHC benches in Hyd, Larkana have already given payment orders to govt.

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) reserved on Tuesday its order on identical petitions against the suspension of salaries to the teaching and non-teaching staff, whose appointments were termed illegal by the govt.

The bench, headed by Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar, reserved the judgment after hearing the final arguments from the counsels appearing for as many as 1,000 petitioners and the provincial law officer.

Case history

The petitioners, who were appointed on the posts of teaching and non-teaching staff of grades BS-1 to BS-15 at the government schools in Karachi, had approached the court when the provincial accountant general stopped their salaries.

They claimed that the previous education and literacy department, under its former secretary, had appointed them on teaching posts at grades BPS-9 to BPS-15 and on non-teaching staff posts of grades BPS-1 to BPS-15. They were appointed after they qualified the mandatory written, viva voce and other tests, the petition said. Despite the fact that they have been performing their duties with dedication, their salaries have been stopped without assigning any reason, they claimed in the petition.

Government’s stance

Previously, the education authorities had revealed that the appointment of 234 teachers was illegal since they were hired on the basis of forged documents. The law officer had argued that the petitions were not maintainable for hearing before the SHC, as they could avail remedy from the service tribunal.

On Tuesday, Advocate Mansoorul Haq Solangi, one of the lawyers representing the petitioners, told the two judges that the SHC Larkana and Hyderabad circuit benches, while hearing similar cases, had already ordered the government to pay salaries to the teaching and non-teaching staff also appointed by the previous education secretary. The incumbent government had, however, failed to pay them. He pleaded the court grant similar relief to the petitioners in the instant petitions in the hand. 

Published in The Express Tribune, May 28^th, 2014.