March, 29 2005	Tuesday	18 Safar 1426

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ISLAMABAD, March 28: The Supreme Court on Monday ordered the Utility Stores Corporation (USC) to immediately reinstate 132 employees after upholding the decision of the Federal Service Tribunal (FST). Out of 132 officials, 23 are officers and 109 are the lower staff. A three-member bench, comprising Chief Justice of Pakistan Nazim Hussain Siddiqui, Justice Javed Iqbal and Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar, was hearing 132 appeals of the USC against FST order which had reinstated different employees of the corporation including Sultan Mehmood, Mushtaq Ahmed, Malik Javed, Fazal Khaliq, Zafar Afzal, Sher Ali Khan etc.

As many as 800 workers had approached the FST after they were laid off by the corporation in the year 2000. Being aggrieved, the corporation moved the Supreme Court with appeals which the top court admitted for regular hearing.

Senior advocate Mohammad Akram Sheikh, representing the employees, told the bench that majority of the workers had a service record of 18 to 20 years to their credit besides none of them were on contract as their jobs were regularized the moment they were promoted during the course of their service.

The corporation, he argued, arbitrarily dismissed the employees from their jobs by adopting the policy of pick and choose exercise always considered to be against the norms of justice. Any order passed compulsorily retiring a civil servant without giving due notice or opportunity of show-cause, he stated, was always deemed to be repugnant to the injunctions of Islam.

The counsel of the USC, comprising Advocates Akhtar Awan and Jaffer Hashmi, failed to satisfy when, during the hearing, the chief justice inquired whether these employees were on contract and whether proper notices were served on them before dismissing them from their jobs.

After hearing both sides, the bench dismissed the appeals of the corporation and reinstated the employees on their jobs.