May 12, 2003	Monday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 9, 1424

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MUZAFFARABAD, May 11: An AJK Supreme Court bench here on Friday accepted nine appeals filed by teachers against a high court judgement and directed the government not to sack any of them by giving retrospective effect to a law.

The division bench, comprising Chief Justice Mohammad Yunus Surakhvi and Justice Khwaja Mohammad Saeed, held that teachers appointed under a law could not be removed later by effecting any change in the law with retrospective effect.

The previous People’s Party government had appointed some 856 teachers under an “education package” by suspending 1994 rules which made the PTC or CT training mandatory for the appointment of any teacher.

The government had justified the appointment of untrained persons on the ground that trained teachers were not available. Later, most of those teachers were provided PTC and CT training at government expense.

However, when the 1994 rules were restored after the change of the PP government, the teachers appointed under the package moved the High Court to seek relief against their sacking by the new government. The High Court in its judgement delivered in March last year had directed the government not to sack those teachers who had passed PTC or CT courses by March 2002.

But the government filed an appeal in the apex court against the HC decision, seeking permission to sack all of the teachers, who did not possess the required qualification at the time of their appointment.

The teachers also filed appeals pleading that the government should be barred from removing them by giving retrospective effect to the law and rules.

The apex court was told that of the 856 teachers appointed, only 32 could not pass the PTC or CT course by March 2002, and that too because their results had got late due to delay in sending their admissions.

The court held in its judgment that the PP government had made the appointments under compelling circumstances because trained teachers were not available at that time. The court observed that it had not received any complaint that untrained persons were appointed in the presence of trained persons.

The court held that since the government had made good expenses on providing training to the teachers, they should not be removed from service.

Advocate Gen Raja Abrar Hussain and senior lawyer Raja Hanif Khan represented the government while teachers’ appeals were pleaded by Khwaja Shahad Ahmed, Khwaja Farooq Ahmed, Khwaja Mohammad Nasim, Attaullah Chak, Sardar Shahid Hameed and Nighat Sultana advocates.