PHC initiates contempt proceedings against two federal secretaries

PESHAWAR: Initiating the contempt of court proceedings, the Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Friday summoned federal secretaries for framing charge against them.

A division bench comprising Justice Ikramullah Khan and Justice Musarrat Hilali also directed the deputy attorney general to ensure that the secretary Finance Division and secretary Education and Professional Training appear on the next hearing or else the court would issue their non-bailable warrant for arrest on the next hearing.

The bench summoned the federal secretaries in contempt of court petition filed by the deputy and assistant directors of Basic Education Community Schools, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, for non-compliance with the court order issued in 2016, directing them to issue salaries and other benefits to the officials as regular employees.

Deputy Directors Syed Qasim Ali Shah and Muhammad Ismail Jabbar, assistant directors Ghulam Yousaf and others had filed the contempt of court petition through their lawyers Farhatullah and Saeed Muhammad.

The petitioners submitted in the contempt of court petition that the high court had on November 30, 2016, allowed their writ petition and directed the respondent officials to issue their regularisation order.

It said that the respondents did not comply with the high court order about regularization of the petitioners. It was pointed out that aggrieved with the act of the respondents, the petitioners filed contempt of court petition against the respondents in 2017, in which the court had again directed them to issue their regularization notification.

Interestingly, it said, the respondents just for face saving only produced one-page notification before the court about their regularization, but to date, the respondents have not officially treated the petitioners as regular employees as per rules and regulations of the Federal Government regular employees and did not issue regular employees pay slip to them.

The petitioners, it said, again filed contempt of court petition against the officials for deceiving the court and only producing one-page notification and then did not comply with the high court order in its letter and spirit.

During the hearing, the deputy attorney general requested the court to give some time before initiating contempt of court proceedings against the respondents. But the bench observed that the respondent officials did not implement the court decisions in years and now let them appear before the court for framing of charge in the contempt of court petition on April 9.

Chand Asghar, DG, Basic Education Community Schools, Islamabad, appeared before the court in the case. However, the court observed that the two secretaries were mainly responsible and should be proceeded against in the contempt of court petition.