PHC suspends IT professional allowance of Secretariat employees

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court on Saturday suspended the payment of IT professional allowance to employees of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Secretariat and other departments receiving allowances and asked the provincial government to submit a reply in the instant case.

The bench issued these orders during the hearing of a petition filed by the PHC employees against the freezing of the IT allowance.

The two-member bench comprising Justice Syed Arshad Ali and Justice Kamran Hayat Miankhel heard the petition.

The petitioners’ lawyer Roohul Amin informed the court that since 2021, the IT allowance had not been paid to the employees working in the IT section of the PHC, while employees in other departments were receiving this allowance along with other benefits.

The provincial government’s stance, he pleaded, was that since the PHC employees were already receiving various allowances, the IT allowance cannot be provided to them.

He contended that employees in various other departments, including the Secretariat, were receiving both the relevant allowances and the IT professional allowance. However, the employees of the PHC were being ignored in this regard.

Upon this, the secretary Finance informed the court that a committee had been formed to resolve this issue and would make the final decision.

In response, the petitioners’ lawyer questioned whether this committee was being formed only for the PHC employees or would also include other departments, as employees of several other departments were already receiving the IT allowance, which was discriminatory against high court employees.

The court noted that the Finance Department had suspended the allowance for PHC employees on the grounds that they were already receiving judicial and other allowances, therefore, the IT allowance could not be provided.

However, if employees in other departments, such as those in the Secretariat, were receiving other allowances, their IT allowance payments should also be suspended until further orders.

The court postponed the hearing and directed the relevant authorities to submit their responses.