Offering relief: Sacked education dept employees get new lease

PHC strikes down clause regarding qualification at first time of appointment.

PESHAWAR:

The Peshawar High Court on Wednesday struck down the condition of having the required qualification at the time of appointment for employees of the education department sacked during 1993 to 1996 across Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

The decision was given by a division bench of Justice Musarrat Hilali and Justice Lal Jan Khattak while hearing a petition filed by 17 employees of the education department through their counsel Khalid Rehman.

Rehman said that their clients were appointed on different posts such as primary schoolteachers, certified teachers and physical education teachers on various dates between 1993 and 1996.

He added when the new government was elected in 1997, the services of these petitioners were terminated through two orders. They have been voicing their grievances at every forum, but to no avail, said Rehman, adding only some of their colleagues were reinstated with all due benefits when they approached the K-P Services Tribunal in 2002 and 2003.

“In 2010, the federal government, while realizing the miseries of politically victimized sacked employees of 1996-99, passed the Sacked Employees (reinstatement) Act 2010 in view of their long-standing grievances. Through it, all employees appointed by the government and then terminated by the next government on political grounds were reinstated,” states the petition.

The lawyer said the provincial government also decided to reinstate other employees sacked in a similar manner, adding data was collected from them but the matter was then put on the backburner. Finally, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Sacked Employees (appointment) Act 2012 was passed and notified on September 20, 2012.

“The policy of appointment of untrained teachers by the education department was fully in vogue at that time and even now, as is evident from the services rules circulated on November 11, 2003,” adds the petition.

All petitioners subsequently acquired the relevant qualifications of the posts against which they were initially appointed, argued Rehman.

The petition added that the condition of possessing required qualification and experience at the time of the first appointment as stated in the 2012 Act was against basic human rights granted in the Constitution.

It also states that the Sindh government faced a similar situation wherein employees were terminated from January 1, 1996 to December 31, 1998 on the basis of political vendetta. However, the Sindh government then issued a simple executive notification on August 25, 2011 and reinstated all sacked employees.

The court was informed that on February 15, 2013, PHC’s Abbottabad registry ordered the reinstatement of district education department officials of Battagram.

“Candidates having less qualification will acquire requisite training and obtain FA qualification within three years, failing which their appointments shall stand terminated automatically,” stated the PHC’s order. The counsel for the petitioners requested the court to declare the K-P Sacked Employees (appointment) Act 2012 to the extent and limit it imposes the impugned condition of possessing the required qualification at the time of first appointment of the petitioners as unconstitutional, discriminatory, self-clashing.

After hearing the arguments from the counsel for petitioners and the government, the court struck down the required qualification of employees during their first appointment and declared the condition illegal.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 25^th, 2014.