Judicial allowances to be increased says Punjab finance secretary

Earlier, employees of LHC filed a petition against delay in provision of increased judicial and ad-hoc allowances.

LAHORE: The decision to increase judicial allowance by 50 per cent for employees of the court was presented to the Lahore High Court (LHC) by Punjab Finance Secretary Jehanzaib Khan on Thursday.

Appearing before Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah, the finance secretary said that the grants would be applicable from July 1, 2010, as applied in other provinces.

Khan assured the court that staff will get the proposed increase from August 1, while the rest of the amount will be paid later owing to financial constraints.

Justice Shah directed Khan to submit a schedule of payment regarding arrears of the increased allowance on the next hearing scheduled for July 17. The judge  further asked the LHC registrar to send a summary detailing demands of payments to finance secretary.

The secretary, however, expressed reservations on the grant of ad-hoc allowance to the employees due to certain complications. The judge put off the matter of ad hoc allowances until further hearings.

Earlier, employees of the LHC had filed a petition against delay in provision of the increased judicial and ad-hoc allowances.

They said that the federal government had announced a 50 per cent increase in judicial and ad-hoc relief allowance for employees of all high courts in the country. However, employees of Supreme Court and all high courts except LHC had been given the allowances.

The employees said that four years had passed but they were still waiting for the allowances despite various directions of the court.