Lahore High Court (LHC) Chief Justice Iftikhar Hussain Chaudhry will hold preliminary proceedings on Friday on a petition challenging the appointment of 128 parliamentary secretaries, specia
LAHORE: Lahore High Court (LHC) Chief Justice Iftikhar Hussain Chaudhry will hold preliminary proceedings on Friday on a petition challenging the appointment of 128 parliamentary secretaries, special assistants, advisers to the Punjab chief minister (CM), standing committee chairpersons and medial coordinators, and the privileges provided to all 39 provincial ministers.
The law firm Muhammad & Ahmad had moved the petition and their counsel Mohammad Azhar had alleged that the officials were wasting the people’s money. He said that the Punjab Parliamentary Secretaries Ordinance 2002 was silent on the appointments. He stated 59 parliamentary secretaries and 39 ministers were incomprehensible when there were only 32 departments. The appointment of such a large number of officials could only be a political move to stay in control of the government, he added.
He stated that the CM had appointed 21 advisers to the Punjab government but he had no authority to do so. He said it was a matter of record that the officials were spending heavily to run their illegal offices, and demanded that the sums spent on various projects be re-examined and audited. He stated that an official who did not uphold the Constitution of Pakistan 1973 could not be said to “bear true faith and allegiance to Pakistan”, and that anyone who flouted the will of the people might be removed from office and action under Article 6 of the Constitution needed to be taken against the person.
He said that it was regrettable that the appointment of advisers to the Punjab government was based on political affiliation, not merit. He demanded that an impartial committee inquire into the expenditures of the officials. He demanded that all appointments of advisers, parliamentary secretaries, chairpersons of various committees and special assistants to the CM be declared unconstitutional, illegal and beyond the authority of the CM, who had made them.
He also requested that the Punjab Ministers Act 1975, Punjab Parliamentary Secretaries Ordinance 2002, Punjab Advisers Ordinance 2002 and the Punjab Special Assistants Ordinance 2002 be declared unreasonable, unconstitutional and means of extortion of public money. staff report
Daily Times
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Quite a few months ago when a retired civil servant (ex BPS 22) was re-employed as chairman of an authority at a monthly salary of Rs550, 000 plus luxurious perks, I happened to meet one of
Quite a few months ago when a retired civil servant (ex BPS 22) was re-employed as chairman of an authority at a monthly salary of Rs550, 000 plus luxurious perks, I happened to meet one of his batch mates. He was all rage and furious. He disclosed to me that the ex-civil servant was not only a class fellow of a VIP but most of their hobbies and interests were also common.
I then inferred that this appointment had created a lot of ill feelings among the appointee's contemporaries.
A serving civil servant, who still has four years of service, has now been appointed at the same salary and perks, by placing billions of rupees of a loan at his disposal, as custodian and rebuilder of the heritage of Lahore. In making this appointment, the sentiments and reaction of his colleagues has been totally ignored. It has also been ignored that such appointments make a mockery of the country's salary-structure.
Someone rang me up to tell me that the appointee has nothing to do with heritage. His only qualification is that he is a civil servant. No effort was made to find out a real professional to assign him.
This reminds me as to how the heritage of Amsterdam was preserved after the great destruction of the world war. An architect was given this job. He worked around the clock, traced out a map of the exterior of the city and made the residents re-build the city according to this map. Can this man do the same?
Syed Mohsin Rizvi
Lahore
If I'm not wrong that civil servants must be Kamran Lashari????? ????
Ö§MÄN uforusman@hotmail.com