PHC suspends notification

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Thursday suspended the provincial government’s notification on withdrawing health professional allowance and arrears recovery from the doctors of Bacha Khan Medical Complex in Swabi district.

A two-member bench comprising Justice Daud Khan and Justice Musarrat Hilali suspended the notification.

It issued notice to finance and health secretaries Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to submit reply in the petition filed against withdrawal of the health professional allowance.

Dr Waheed Alam Jan had filed the writ petition against the notification on withdrawal and arrears recovery of health professional allowance through his lawyer Mukhtiar Maneeri.

The petitioner lawyer submitted before the bench that the provincial government had introduced Khyber Pakhtun-khwa Medical Teaching Institutions Reforms Act, 2015. Under the act, he said, in various hospitals Board of Governors (BoGs) and the doctors and other employees were given option to bring services under the act or else they would be declared as resigned and there would be no reason that the employees would remain as civil servant.

The lawyer submitted that the notification was illegal and unlawful. He requested the court to declare it as void.