High court directs govt to justify appointment of Sepa chief

The Sindh High Court (SHC) has directed the provincial law officer to file comments about the eligibility criteria for the appointment of the Sindh Environmental Protection Agency (Sepa) director general. The direction came on a petition of Javed Iqbal, who challenged the government’s appointment of the Sepa chief.

The petitioner’s counsel Mohammad Vawda said that under the service structure notification, the DG in grade-20 should be appointed either directly with a PhD degree in environmental engineering or through promotion.

The counsel referred to the minutes of a selection board meeting in which it was decided to appoint the DG directly, while the respondent DG was promoted as an additional DG but immediately promoted to DG.

He said the post of the Sepa DG needs to be fulfilled through the procedure and rules laid down in the law, but the selection board appointed its own officer as the DG after promoting him as an additional DG.

The respondent lacks the qualification required for the post of the Sepa DG, he added. He requested the court to set aside the impugned notification about the appointment. He also sought urgent hearing of the petition.

The provincial law officer said he would submit para-wise comments on the petition, as the matter has already been fixed to be heard on August 12.

An SHC division bench headed by Justice Mohammad Faisal Kamal Alam said that no urgency is required in the matter, and dismissed the urgent hearing application. The court, however, directed the provincial law officer to file comments highlighting the eligibility criteria in the last order.

The court had observed that the provincial government should make interim arrangements for the appointment of the Sepa DG if the eligibility criteria are not fulfilled for the post. The government had posted Waqar Hussain Phulpoto as the Sepa chief after his promotion to the post of additional DG on May 2.