PHC orders regularisation of PPHI employees

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Friday ordered regularisation of the services of more than 212 employees of the People's Primary Healthcare Initiative (PPHI).

A two-member bench comprising Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth and Justice Younas Thaheem allowed the writ petition and ordered regularisation of managerial and administrative staff of the PPHI across the province.

The employees including monitory and evaluation officers, district managers, executive finance officers, administrative officers and others had filed writ petition through their lawyer Sahibzada Assadullah to seek regularisation of their services.

During the hearing, the petitioner's lawyer submitted that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government through a notification on September 20, 2016 notified closure of PPHI. He added that the government also announced that the employees of PPHI would be sacked.

The lawyer argued that the employees challenged the provincial government's notification and got a stay order on the closure of the PPHI and sacking of the employees. In the meantime, he said, the employees also filed petition for regularisation of their services.

The lawyer pointed out that the PPHI was supposed to continue till 2018 because through this project the government was providing better healthcare facilities to the people in rural areas of the province.

He argued that before the closure the government had assigned a third party to review the performance of PPHI and it declared that the PPHI and the performance of its staff were better than that of any other government healthcare institution. The lawyer said that all the employees were experienced and could be adjusted in various departments in case the government closed down the project after the court's decision.