SHC suspends ministry’s notification of PSQCA employees’ de-regularisation

The Sindh High Court on Tuesday suspended a notification of the ministry of science and technology of the de-regularisation of employees of the Pakistan Standard and Quality Control Authority (PSQCA).

The interim order came on a petition of Ali Mohammad and others challenging de-regularisation of PSQCA employees after regularising them. 

The petitioners’ counsel submitted that the petitioners, who were contract employees and had been performing duties since 2012 in the authority on different posts, were regularised after the completion of all codal formalities and approval by the scrutiny committee and board of directors of PSQCA in 2023.

The counsel said the ministry of science and technology through the impugned letter of November 2, 2023, on behalf of the chairman of the board of directors of PSQCA, referred to the Islamabad High Court’s order in which it declared the regularisation made pursuant to a direction of a special committee of the National Assembly had been declared void. He submitted that services of the petitioners were not regularized pursuant to the directions or recommendations of the special committee as referred, but their services were regularized after the completion of the process through the scrutiny committee and the approval by the board of the directors in accordance with the law.

He said that despite such distinguished facts relating to the petitioners’ jobs their salaries had been stopped. He said the court had also issued a restraining order in identical nature cases filed by PSQCA employees.

A division bench, headed by Acting Chief Justice Aqeel Ahmed Abbasi, after the preliminary hearing of the petition, issued notices to the ministry of science and technology and others and called their comments on January 12.

In the meantime, the court suspended the operation of the impugned letter issued by the ministry with regard to de-regularizsation and stopping of salaries of the petitioners till further orders.