LHC restrains govt from deducting salaries of academics

LAHORE: The Lahore High Court has stayed deduction from salaries of lecturers/assistant professors under the garb of re-fixation and sought a reply from the Punjab Finance Department.

Zafar Khan Jadoon and other lecturers who have been regularised from contract jobs challenged the deduction of their salaries.

Representing the petitioners, Advocate Safdar Shaheen Pirzada argued that the petitioners were entitled to withdraw salaries as per basic pay scale, which they were receiving before their regularisation.

He said the petitioners were appointed by the Higher Education Department as lecturers during 2002 and 2005 and worked on contract till their regularisation in 2011 and 2013.

However, he said, the finance department slashed salaries of the petitioners after their regularisation and started making unauthorised deduction of allowances from their monthly salary in the name of re-fixation and actualization.

The counsel asked the court to set aside the impugned decision of the government being illegal and order restoration of petitioners’ salaries as per their pay scale.

Justice Sajid Mahmood Sethi observed that the points raised in the petitions needed consideration. The judge restrained the government from making deduction from the salaries of the petitioners under the garb of re-fixation/actualization and sought replies from the departments concerned by Nov 1.

LHC EMPLOYEES
The Lahore High Court has directed the Punjab additional chief secretary to appear in person and explain unavailability of house hiring/house ceiling facility for the employees of court.

Muhammad Akmal Khan, a deputy registrar of the LHC, filed a petition and pleaded through counsel that in 1997 the provincial government framed a new policy for official residences for employees of the Civil Secretariat, the Punjab Assembly and the high court.

However, he said, the government later introduced house hiring or alternate house ceiling facility allowance to the employees of the secretariat only while employees of the LHC were totally ignored.

The petitioner said he applied for government residence in 2000 but no such accommodation had been given to him or other employees so far. He stated that non-inclusion of the LHC employees in the house hiring facility was an unlawful act of the government and liable to be reviewed. Therefore, the petitioner asked the court to order the government to also implement the policy on the high court employees as per their entitlement.

Justice Ali Akbar Qureshi sought personal appearance of the additional chief secretary to explain the situation on Wednesday (today).

Source: Dawn News