ORDER SHEET

IN THE HIGH COURT OF SINDH, AT KARACHI

Constitutional Petition No.D-1676 of 2008

   Date              Order with signature of Judge                  

1. For Orders on Office Objection a/w reply.

2. For Katcha Peshi.

3. For hearing of Misc. 7988/08.

08/04/2009.

       Mr. Naeem Iqbal, Advocate for Petitioner.

Ms. Haleema Khan, Additional Advocate General, Sindh.

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       Petitioners claim that they were appointed in Education & Literacy Department, Government of Sindh at Khairpur on contract for three years in terms of appointment orders of different dates but of the same year that is 2007 attached with this petition as annexures E/1 to E/89 in different grades as mentioned in the appointment orders.

Learned Counsel for the petitioners states that such appointment orders were complied with inasmuch as the appointees reported for duties and were given postings but since the date of their appointments, they have not been paid salaries by the respondents and request for payment of salaries of such appointees.

       Learned Addl:A.G. relying upon the comments of respondents 1, 2 and 4 states that there is nothing in such comments to dispute the fact of such appointment orders and providing of postings to the appointees nor anything is stated about payment of salaries to them. She states that court may pass an appropriate direction in this regard.

Upon perusal of the comments filed by respondents 1 and 4, it appears that a notification dated 30.9.2008 was issued by the Education & Literacy Department, Government of Sindh, which stated that appointments made prior to 19.11.2007 are valid and their salaries be released and the appointments made after 19.11.2007 are not valid and stand cancelled pursuant to the decision taken by cabinet in its meeting held on 13.4.2008. The rational given for the cancellation of appointment was that such appointment were made after announcement of election schedule. Learned A.A.G. contended that only such appointment orders have been cancelled which were made during caretaker government but could not support such cancellation by any law.

       We have given our due consideration to the matter and find that some of the appointment orders were made prior to 19.11.2007 and some were made after this date on the basis of notification dated 10.8.2007, whereby the Chief Minister, Sindh has relaxed the ban on appointments from BPS-01 to BPs-04 in Education & Literacy Department, Government of Sindh, which were advertised and pursuant to such advertisement the appointees were selected and given the appointment orders. Merely for the reason that some of the appointment orders were issued after 19.11.2007 by caretaker government cannot, in itself, be the reason for their cancellation. In law there appears to be no distinction between a regular government or a caretaker government.

       Constitution recognizes Federal Government and Provincial Government and sphere of their functions are well defined in it. The concept of caretaker government though is not alien to constitution  but such government is also a government under the mandate of constitution. Nothing was shown to us that there was any limitation on the government after 19.11.2007 whereby it could not have undertaken the process of appointment and issued the appointment orders as has been done in the present case. Article 25 of the Constitution of Pakistan mandates that all citizens are equal before law and are entitled to equal protection of law and there shall be no discrimination. In the case in hand the appointment orders were made under one and same process some before 19.11.2007 and some after that date. Both the groups of appointees namely one to whom appointment orders were issued prior to 19.11.2007 and the other group to whom appointment orders were issued after 19.11.2007 appear to be similarly placed in the matter of their appointments and there appears to be no valid justification for treating the two groups differently. Merely because another government was inducted and during its tenure some of appointment orders were issued will not make the appointment orders invalid or liable for cancellation as such action will directly be in negation of provision of Article 25 of the Constitution of Pakistan and non existent in the eye of law, which is hereby simply ignored by us.

       For the foregoing reasons we allow this petition and direct the respondents to pay the salaries to the appointees within one month if such salaries have not been paid uptil now. The listed application is also disposed off.

J U D G E

J U D G E