Court orders: Education secretary directed to not issue notifications of promoted officials

Separately, life imprisonment sentence for two drug peddlers reduced to five years each.

PESHAWAR:

The Peshawar High Court on Wednesday directed the secretary for Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Elementary and Secondary Education Department to not issue notifications of officials who were recently promoted and submit a report in this regard.

The order was issued by a bench of Justice Nisar Hussain Khan and Justice Syed Afsar Shah. The court was hearing a petition filed by Ahmad Ali and 16 other officials of the education department.



Khalid Rehman, the petitioners’ counsel, told the bench that recently the K-P government had approved promotions of education officials posted in various institutions across the province. However, 17 officials—including principals, headmasters and deputy district officers (DDOs) of BPS-18—were not promoted, he said.

Approval was given during the meeting of the Provincial Selection Board (PSB) where officials from across the province were promoted to BPS-19, he added.

Rehman told the court that his clients were told they were not promoted because they did not fulfil the criteria for adequate experience. The counsel said there is a formula for promotions whereby experience for BPS-16 and below is also counted. Rehman said his clients fulfil these conditions.

After hearing the preliminary arguments, the court issued an order directing the education secretary not to issue the notification of officials who were recently promoted. The court also directed the secretary and finance department to submit their comments regarding the matter.

Reduced sentence

In another case, the same bench reduced life imprisonment sentences awarded to two drug peddlers to five years each. Rangeen and Nisar Muhammad had been arrested for smuggling 29 kilogrammes of heroin and 20 kilogrammes of hashish.

Noor Alam Khan, counsel for the petitioners, told the court his clients were arrested at Rashakai Interchange on the motorway on March 5, 2013. The anti-narcotics force recovered the drugs from the vehicle.

However, Noor Alam added, drugs were not recovered on the spot. On the contrary, he said, the vehicle was impounded and taken to the customs house where the drugs were allegedly taken out.

Moreover, Noor Alam said, legal procedures had not been complied with.

He stated the drug samples which were sent to the laboratory were only taken from one of the packets. He asked the court to acquit them. The court decided to reduce the sentence of the accused to five years each.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 27^th, 2014.