Holding one another back: APCA Punjab’s squabbles delay agreement with govt

Three factions fighting court case for representation rights.

LAHORE:

As the All Pakistan Clerks Association prepares for a showdown with the government in the coming week, three groups in APCA’s Punjab chapter have been clawing at each other in a bid to claim the right to represent the clerks of the province.

Though the objective remains the same – getting the government to approve APCA’s charter of demands, there is lack of consensus on which groups gets to speak for the clerks. Haji Irshad, Sultan Mujaddadi and Nazar Hussain Qarai are all chairmen of their respective splinter groups and have dragged their tussle to the courts.

The group led by Mujaddadi has filed a petition in the Lahore High Court seeking a stay on talks between the government and the group led by Irshad.

Mujaddadi’s group says that Irshad cannot be the chairman of APCA Punjab because after being promoted to BS-17, he is no longer a clerk. Mujaddadi told The Express Tribune that the court had granted them a stay order and Irshad’s group will not be able to negotiate with the government.

The group led by Qarai was also stopped from holding talks with the government after Mujaddadi’s group filed a similar petition against them.



Mujaddadi said, “Only we can truly represent people from our grade…Irshad and Qarai aren’t clerks anymore…they’re officers.  By claiming to be representatives of the APCA, they only want to be able to claim personal favours from senior officers.”

The group led by Irshad has been holding a series of demonstration against the government. Mujaddadi claims that he has the support of officials from at least 30 government departments. His group, too, has announced a protest demonstration against the government on May 14 in front of the provincial assembly.

When contacted, Irshad said the other groups were doing a disservice to clerks by placing obstacles in their way. “It is because of their antics that the government justifies its sluggish progress on accepting our demands. Our group has the most number of clerks and we will continue to represent them.”

He said the stay order obtained by Mujaddadi came, “just as the government was about to issue an official notification on our demands…now the government has refused to accept our demands till the court issues a verdict on the petition Mujaddadi filed.”

He said they would fight the court case. There had been two hearings on the matter but the court was unable to take up the matter because of shortage of time. The next hearing is in July, he said.

“We are planning to file a petition against Mujaddadi’s group…We won’t let them represent clerical staff,” Irshad said.

Qarai, however, refused to comment and said the matter would be resolved in court.

APCA’s charter of demands, which all three groups have been pressing the government to accept, includes: bringing salaries at par with other provinces; upgrading scales the way KP did; timescale promotions for technical and non-technical staff between grades 5 and 16; upgrading superintendents’ scale to BS-17; premature increment up-gradation according to 2007 rules; regularisation of employees on daily wages or contracts who have completed three years of service; housing requisitions; and the implementation of a school admission quota for children of government employees among others.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 8^th, 2015.