September 19, 2007	Wednesday	Ramazan 06, 1428

MULTAN, Sept 18: A highways department clerk, who found himself being made a scapegoat in a transfer case, on Tuesday withdrew his petition from the Lahore High Court’s Multan Bench after he submitted that the department had stopped the process.

The court dismissed the petition which alleged that the plaintiff was transferred illegally through a directive issued by the chief minister on the recommendations of three members of the Punjab Assembly.

In his petition, Abdul Rasheed, a divisional clerk in the highways department, submitted that he had been working as a senior clerk in grade VI — a post previously held for eight years by Riaz Husain.

A year ago, he said, Riaz was transferred to Layyah but he continued his efforts to come back to Muzaffargarh and approached Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi through provincial minister Rai Mansab Ali, provincial parliamentary secretary Imtiaz Aleem Qureshi and Allah Yar Hiraj who wrote recommendation letters to the chief minister for his transfer.

On their recommendation, chief minister’s principle secretary GM Sikandar issued directive for his re-transfer on Nov 25, 2006. In August 2007, the officers concerned issued letters for the mutual transfer of Riaz Husain and Abdul Rasheed, the petitioner.

The petitioner called the transfer illegal and took the stand that the government had banned all kinds of transfers of its employees and the Supreme Court, too, had slapped a ban on them.

On Sept 4, during the hearing of the petition, Justice Jehangir Arshad took strict notice of the Chief Minister Secretariat’s involvement in the transfers and directed Pervaiz Elahi to submit a written explanation through his principle secretary. The court summoned Imtiaz Qureshi, Rai Mansab and Allah Yar Hiraj on Sept 18 to explain why the court should not forward disqualification references to the chief election commissioner against them as well as the chief minister and why it should not forward the recommendations of contempt of court to the apex court.

The judge also sent for the highways chief engineer, South Lahore; the superintendent engineer, Multan Circle; and the executive engineer, Dera Ghazi Khan; to give reasons why contempt of court recommendations should not be sent against them to the Supreme Court after concealing the transfer orders.

Justice Jehangir said involvement in transfers and appointments of the government employees was not only the violation of the court order, but also of the civil servant act. He observed: “Blackmailing and usurpation by the legislators have been the major cause of institutional decay against which the court had already warned the legislators”.

Despite taking notices in various cases and expressing displeasure by courts, he said, the violation was going on.

As Justice Jehangir was transferred a few days after he issued notices to the chief minister and members of the provincial assembly, Justice Fazl-i-Miran Chauhan on Tuesday dismissed the petition on the request of plaintiff Abdul Rasheed after he said his transfer had been cancelled.

Similarly, two other plaintiffs — food department office assistant Khurram Abbas and Muhammad Aslam of Sahiwal — withdrew their petitions on the same grounds.