SHC seeks reports confirming missing persons’ families are not receiving salaries

The Sindh High Court on Thursday directed the Karachi mayor, the secretaries of excise and taxation and local bodies departments, and the managing director of the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board to submit reports confirming orders were being implemented to ensure families of missing government employees were not receiving salaries.

The direction came during a hearing of a petition of Rukshana against the enforced disappearance of her son, Mehmood Ali, an employee of the Karachi Port Trust, allegedly picked up by personnel of law enforcement agencies on April 9, 2017.

The court at a previous hearing had taken notice of the conduct over the inquiry commission on enforced disappearances, which had directed the government departments to release salaries of missing government employees to their family members despite the fact that the matter was sub judice before the court and there was no evidence before the court that missing persons had been abducted by the any state law enforcement agency.

The court had directed the chairman of the inquiry commission to ensure that no salary was paid to the petitioners of any missing persons unless it was proven that they had been abducted or taken away illegally by any government agency as such persons may have deliberately gone underground to hide themselves to avoid institution of criminal cases or otherwise.

The inquiry commission on enforced disappearances’ secretary filed a report with the court mentioning that the commission had issued directions to the departments concerned to release salaries to as many as 30 missing government employees out of which salaries were being paid to 10 missing government employees’ families. However, the payment of salaries to the missing persons’ families had been stopped following the introduction of the biometric system for bank account holders and directions had been issued to the departments by the commission in this regard.

The secretary submitted that the missing government employees were appointed to the KWSB, the KMC, and excise and taxation and local government departments. He submitted that directions for the issuance of salaries were issued after the registration of cases with the commission and prima facie finding that these were cases of enforced disappearances.

He said that families of missing persons had requested the commission to order the release of salaries, mentioning their financial constraints and starving conditions as missing persons were the only breadwinners for them.

He submitted that the attention of the chief secretary had been drawn to the instruction of the finance division, requesting him to issue guidelines for all departments to deal with each case in accordance with the relevant rules of the finance division.

According to the report, as many as 30 government employees of the KMC, Excise and Taxation Department, DMCs, Karachi Port Trust, PNS Iqbal, Port Qasim Authority, health department, Airport Security Force and the KWSB were either missing or alleged to have been taken away by personnel of law enforcement agencies about two years ago from different parts of the city.

The KPT chairman also filed a compliance report mentioning that no missing employee of the KPT was being paid any salary or allowance nor would the trust do so in future.

A division bench headed by Justice Mohammad Karim Khan Agha directed the respondents to submit compliance reports confirming that no family of the missing government employees was receiving any salary from their department, and adjourned the hearing by October 31.