High court stays committee till petitions heard

Committed stayed till disposal of several petitions filed by senior officers of Sindh govt.

KARACHI: A division bench of the Sindh High Court (SHC) stayed the holding of a departmental promotion committee till the disposal of several petitions filed by senior officers of the Sindh government.

The bench, comprising Chief Justice Sarmad Jalal Osmany and Justice Salman Hamid, earlier heard two petitions. One of the petitions filed by bureaucrat Naubat Khan Zardari impugned the promotion of former promotion committee officers who had been exempted by the chief minister from fulfilling the mandatory requirement of passing the departmental exam. Zardari’s lawyer, Yawa Farooqui, prayed the court that the petition be heard and decided on merit. Naeem Iqbal, the lawyer for more than a dozen respondent senior officers, opposed saying the officers had filed many petitions that were pending before the SHC bench entrusted to hear petitions about service matters. Iqbal said the petitions were fixed to be heard on December 23. Farooqui submitted that the respondent’s petitions are at a preliminary stage and so far only notices had been issued.

Zardari submitted that the exemption led the entire governance system towards a debacle. He pressed the bench to hear the petition. The bench, however, ordered the transfer of the petition to a bench that deals with service matters and ordered that no committee be held till the disposal of the petition filed by Zardari.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 8^th, 2010.