ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Monday ordered to include 37 employees of the Associated Press of Pakistan (APP), who have been allegedly illegally promoted by the APP management, in the list of respondents, along with agency’s senior management. Justice Ghulam Azam Qambrani of the IHC took up a petition filed against the APP senior management and the information ministry challenging holding of the departmental promotion committee (DPC) meeting and subsequent promotion of 37 employees of the agency. Earlier, APP Managing Director (MD) Tariq Mehmood Khan, Executive Director Ghawas Ahmed Khan and Secretary Information and Broadcasting Akbar Durrani had been directed by the IHC to appear in person and explain to the court the promotion of 37 senior employees of the organization despite the matter having been pending with the court. As the hearing began on Monday, APP’s counsel informed the court that due to some official engagements, APP MD, ED and secretary information could not appear. “I would represent them and try my level best to satisfy the court,” he said, and further pleaded the court to include 31 employees, whose promotion has been challenged in the petition, in the list of respondents. The judge sought opinion of the counsel for the petitioners, Khuram Baig, who responded that his clients have no objection over making them party in the case. Subsequently, the court directed inclusion of 31 APP employees in the case as respondents and fixed the next hearing for April 8. Earlier, the IHC had asked the APP management and the ministry of information and broadcasting as to why some promotions in next grades were made through the Departmental Promotion Committee (DPC) while the matter was already sub-judice. Two APP employees, Javed Arif and Syed Yawar Abbas, through lawyer Khuram Baig, had filed a contempt petition in the IHC against MD APP Tariq Mehmood Khan, Executive Director APP Ghawas Ahmed Khan, and Secretary Information and Broadcasting Akbar Durrani. The petitioners maintained that the APP management held a DPC on February 7, 2020, and issued a notification subsequently notifying promotion of some employees to the next grade, which, they claimed, was an illegal act by the authorities. Through a separate petition in the IHC, the said two employees of the APP, through counsels Shoaib Shaheen, Muhammad Umair Baloch and two others, had already challenged over 20 alleged illegal appointments in the organisation. They claimed in their joint petition that the employees had been appointed through illegal means by adopting policy of favoritism and nepotism as most of them were either overage or not adequately qualified. The petitioners claimed that due to this mala-fide practice, a number of brilliant, well-qualified and deserving candidates had been deprived from jobs. “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 of the constitution,” the petition maintained. “Hence, the impugned notification (under which appointments were made) be declared void, illegal and unlawful as the officers are holding public office quite unlawfully,” they had prayed. The petitioners had also requested the court that the unlawfully appointed employees in the agency should be called up to explain that under what authority of law, they had been holding their positions in the public department without possessing the requisite qualification, experience and being overage. “They have been appointed through an unlawful procedure, their services are liable to be terminated and impugned order is required to declared illegal, unlawful and void,” the petition said.