Social organisers not being restored despite court orders

PESHAWAR: The fate of 24 social organisers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is hanging in the balance as they are not being restored by the Directorate of Health Services despite the orders of the superior courts for their restoration.
The 24 social organisers of the Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (MNCH) Programme were not restored even after repeated contempt of court notices of the Peshawar High Court (PHC) to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Directorate of Health Services.
The social organisers won the legal battle that they had been fighting since 2011 against the Health Department in both the Peshawar High Court and Supreme Court.
Irfan Jamal, one of the petitioners, told The News that the provincial government removed the social organisers from service without giving them proper reason except lack of funds to pay their salaries.
Later, he said the employees approached the PHC, which accepted their writ petition on April 12, 2014 and directed the government to reinstate them.
Subsequently, he said, the provincial Health Department approached the Supreme Court to challenge the PHC verdict. On November 19, 2014, the division bench of Supreme Court comprising of Justice Jawad S Khwaja and Justice Sarmad Jalal Osmany dismissed the department’s appeal and upheld the high court’s decision.
Irfan Jamal said that despite the court orders, the provincial government was yet to reinstate the employees.
Later, the 24 social organisers filed a contempt of court petition in the high court. The court issued directives to the Health Department and MNCH high-ups to issue the reinstatement orders of the social organizers, but to no avail.
Talking to The News, another social organiser said the MNCH programme high-ups were not accepting the decision of the Supreme Court about their reinstatement.
He said the programme head had sent a PC-1 to the Health Department about making appointments for various programmes, but had ignored the petitioners in it.
He said the Health Department returned the PC-1 to the programme coordinator and directed him to include the posts of 24 social organisers in the PC-1 as per the decisions of the courts.
The social organiser said that during a meeting with Health Minister Shahram Tarakai and additional secretary health, they conveyed the court orders to them. The minister assured them that they would soon be reinstated, he added.