PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Thursday issued notices to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief secretary and secretary Planning and Development (P&D) Department, seeking their response to a writ petition challenging the merger of project employees from the merged districts into the P&D Department.
A two-member bench comprising Justice Syed Arshad Ali and Justice Babar Sattar was hearing a writ petition filed by Khyber Pakh-tunkhwa Planners Association president Hamid Naveed.During the hearing, counsel for the petitioners, Ali Gohar Durrani advocate told the court that his clients were employees of the P&D Department and were currently serving in the P&D Department and other departments under its administrative control after being appointed through the Public Service Commission or on the basis of seniority. He submitted that under the relevant laws, appointments to the cadre could only be made through direct recruitment or promotion with seniority determined accordingly.
The counsel pleaded that the provincial cabinet had recently approved the merger of more than 68 former Fata employees in grades 17, 18 and 19 into the P&D Department, following which a formal notification had also been issued.
He argued that the employees being merged were project employees who had been directly appointed in grades 17, 18 and 19. The move, he said, had caused concern among the existing employees of the P&D Department because, according to reports, the newly merged employees were also being given seniority in the department.
The counsel maintained that under the law, when employees were merged or transferred from one department to another, they should be placed at the bottom of the seniority list. Since the petitioners were already serving in the department, he argued, they should be given seniority ahead of the newly merged employees.
He contended that the provincial government’s decision violated the rules governing the Provincial Planning Service and should therefore be declared unlawful and set aside. He also referred to several judgments of the Supreme Court and other superior courts in support of his arguments.
Justice Syed Arshad Ali observed that the provincial government first appoints people under projects and later faces difficulties in deciding where to accommodate them. He said that since the provincial government had already issued a formal notification in the matter, it was appropriate to wait for its response.
