Recruitment of 52 officers in Punjab Education Foundation stayed

LAHORE: The Lahore High Court on Monday restrained Punjab Education Foundation (PEF) from recruiting 52 district monitoring and evaluation officers being allegedly appointed in violation of the Recruitment Policy 2004.

Justice Farrukh Irfan Khan passed the order on an application filed by Muhammad Qadeer Aslam. The petitioner’s counsel pleaded before the court that he had already filed a writ petition before this court wherein he challenged the appointment of 126 district and monitoring evaluation assistants in violation of Recruitment Policy 2004 but during pendency of the petition the Punjab Education Foundation advertised another 52 posts for the same positions.

The counsel argued that the Punjab Education Foundation had appointed all the 126 officers who are former military men and not a single civilian had either been shortlisted or called for the interview. He said no merit was being observed by the foundation and the Recruitment Policy 2004 was blatantly violated and all the posts were dished out to ex-servicemen without any merit and justification.

The petitioner’s counsel said the present regime was making preparations for the coming general elections and in that move it is observing only the policy of favoritism and nepotism. As per the policy, the counsel said, only five marks were to be awarded to the ex-service men including the military men or Hafiz-e-Quran but the PEF displayed no merit list as to how all the retired military men were appointed depriving the civilians of these posts.

verdict upheld: The Lahore High Court Monday upheld a decision of a labour court and ordered a coal mining company to pay compensation to its worker suffering from a disease not covered under Workman Compensation Act 1923.

The coal mining company had challenged the decision of the labour court pleading that compensation could not be given to the worker as the disease he had been suffering from was not covered under the law. The labour court had ordered the company to pay Rs100,000 as compensation to its worker suffering from pulmonary koch.

The company’s counsel argued that labour court passed the order without giving the petitioner-company an opportunity of hearing and secondly the disease of pulmonary koch was not covered under the schedule of Workman Compensation Act 1923. Advocate Sheraz Zaka, appointed by the court as amicus curie, stated that Workman Compensation Act 1923, covered the disease of silicosis, a lung disease, but pulmonary koch was not included in the third schedule of the Act. Although both diseases silicosis and pulmonary koch were similar in nature, he added. He said the pulmonary koch being a serious disease of lungs from which coal mine workers normally suffered should also be included in the Act.

He pointed out that the Act had not been implemented in letter and spirit, which had been resulting into deaths of coal mine workers. A government’s law officer presented a notification before the court saying that several diseases had been included in third schedule of the Act in question but pulmonary koch disease was not covered under the law. He said the court had thepower to direct the government to also include pulmonary koch in the law.