Contractual employees: IHC orders formation of commission to regularise services

Justice Athar Minallah orders to have matter resolved in three months.

ISLAMABAD:

The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Wednesday ordered the federal government to constitute a commission for regularisation of over 100 daily-wage and contract employees and decide their fate in three months.

Justice Athar Minallah, while hearing identical petitions filed by 117 employees of various government departments, directed the government to constitute a commission comprising members of secretary-level and decide the matter in three months.

The employees claim the government has adopted a ‘discriminatory policy’ against them and requested the court to pass the order of their regularisation.

The petitions were filed by the people working in the education and health departments, Auditor General of Pakistan, National Commission for Human Development, Pakistan Public Works Department, Capital Development Authority and others. The petitioners’ counsel, Shoaib Shaheen, maintained that his clients are working in different government departments since many years, however, the government has yet to regularise them despite the recommendation of a committee which was formed by the previous government.

The counsel maintained that it was discriminatory that half of the employees were regularised by the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz government and the other half were deprived of it. He informed the court that the previous government had formed a cabinet sub-committee for the regularisation of daily wagers headed by Pakistan Peoples Party’s Syed Khursheed Shah, which recommended their regularisation.

It is noted that IHC Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui had declared null and void the recommendation of the committee but in May this year, a two-member bench of the court set-aside that decision.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 11^th, 2014.