SHC suspends appointment of project director for Karachi’s uplift schemes

The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Tuesday suspended the appointment of the local government’s project director for Karachi’s mega and Annual Development Programme (ADP) schemes until further orders.

The interim order came on a petition of Syed Adeel Hyder challenging the appointment of Mohammad Zafar Khan Baloch. The petitioner’s counsel said the respondent officer was holding the public office in violation of the Supreme Court’s judgment because he was a grade-19 officer of the Sindh Councils Unified Grades Service (SCUGS).

The counsel said that Baloch was haphazardly promoted to the grade-20 post of senior director (survey) in the LG department without fulfilling the legal requirements of the recruitment rules.

He said the respondent was not a professional engineer, was not qualified or eligible to hold the post of project director. The counsel also said the respondent was not authorised to carry out professional engineering work due to the decision of the SC.

He added that through a notification the provincial government had promoted the respondent officer to grade-20 by creating the post of senior director (survey), which was not a SCUGS post, and posted him for the subject scheme in violation of SC judgments.

He pointed out that a mega project of Karachi’s development involving billions of rupees of the public exchequer was entrusted to a person who is neither eligible nor competent to carry out or execute it.

He said the ADP 2021-22 was related to purely engineering work that cannot be executed by a non-professional engineer, thus the public amount is at stake in the hands of an unqualified and non-professional engineer. He sought the suspension of the impugned notification until the case is decided.

An SHC division bench comprising Justice Aftab Ahmed Gorar and Justice Adnanul Karim Memon said the points raised in the petition require consideration. The court issued notices to Sindh’s advocate general, chief secretary, services secretary and others, calling for them to file their comments on February 17. The bench in the meantime suspended the impugned notification with regard to the appointment of the project director until further orders.