Daily Times

The Islamabad High Court (IHC) has issued contempt of court notices to managing director (MD) of the Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) and two others in an alleged illegal appointment case of over 20 senior employees in the organisation.

In the issued notices, the IHC asked the respondents to tell the reasons on which the APP management promoted some employees in next grades while holding Departmental Promotion Committee (DPC) meeting as the matter was already sub judice.

The two APP employees, Javed Arif and Syed Yawar Abbas, through lawyer Khuram Baig, filed a contempt petition in the IHC against MD APP Tariq Mehmood Khan, Executive Director APP Ghawas Ahmed Khan, and Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Secretary Akbar Durrani.

The petitioners said that the APP administration held a DPC on February 7, 2020 and issued notification subsequently to promote some employees of the agency which, they alleged, was an illegal act by the authorities.

The court issued notices to the respondents accordingly and fixed the hearing for today (Monday).

According to the details, the said two petitioners, through counsel Muhammad Shoaib Shaheen, Muhammad Umair Baloch and two others already challenged over 20 alleged illegal appointments in the IHC. They said in a joint petition that “the employees have been appointed through illegal means by adopting policy of favouritism and nepotism as most of them were either overage or not qualified in”.

The petitioners claimed due to this mala-fide practice number of brilliant, well-qualified and deserving candidates have been deprived from jobs as they never been given opportunity to avail their talents in the agency.

“Due to this illegality hundreds of deserving citizens of Pakistan being qualified, eligible and suitable for the subject posts have been ignored. Their appointments have flagrant violations of articles 4,9,25 and 27 constitution of the country”, the petitioners alleged.

Due to this backdrop, as per petition, “the impugned notification (under which appointments were made) is void, illegal and unlawful while the officers are holding public office quite unlawfully”.

The petitioners requested the court that the unlawfully appointed employees in the agency should be called up to explain that under what authority of law, they are holding the positions in the public department without processing the requisite qualification, experience and having expired age. “The impugned order issued in the favour of said employees is liable to be set aside”, the petition reads.

The petition further said that as they are appointed under unlawful procedure, their services are liable to be terminated and impugned order is required to declare illegal, unlawful and void.

Besides this, the petition said, the constitutional guarantees given in the constitution of the country have been violated while appointing the ineligible and unqualified persons in the organisation. “This is another ground to declare the issued notification in the favour of these employees, as suspended”, said the petition.

It pleaded that the court may direct the ministry of information and MD APP to suspend the (alleged illegal previous order) and pass an adverse order in the favour of petitioners till final disposal of the write petition. Grant of any other relief in the favour of petitioners which the court deems batter, was also requested in the filed petition.

A senate sub-committee on information and broadcasting decision was also cited in the petition, according to which the committee expressed serious concern over these appointments. “Even the requirements of qualification/ experience prescribed in the advertisement placed in newspapers for recruitments were not fully adhered”, the committee had said adding that many cases of fake degrees/certificates furnished by incumbents which were detected afterwards should have been investigated by the agency administration during initial stages of recruitment as per the standard norms in government organisations to avoid embarrassment afterwards.

The committee had also highlighted that in many cases the internal candidates were given undue benefits as consideration of merit, educational qualification, provincial quota, were either ignored altogether or observed only partially. As a result, the committee said, it seems that these recruitments become altogether a family affair. And this lack of transparency no observance of merit is a said reflection which can seriously undermine its credibility.

Not only this, the petition recalled, the then MD also admitted before the committee regarding the pointed unlawful act.