March 27, 2008	Thursday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 18, 1429

HYDERABAD, March 26: The Hyderabad circuit bench of the Sindh High Court on Tuesday stayed the announcement of result of a written test for the post of revenue officers on a petition filed by an employee of the Hyderabad Electric Supply Company (Hesco).

The court had earlier on March 10 passed an interim order, restraining the respondents cited by the petitioner from announcing the result till March 25 but now it had allowed the petitioner’s stay application.

Jalaluddin Rajput, a lower division clerk (LDC) in Hesco, had filed two contempt of court applications over the company’s violation of court orders.

He said that he had applied to the chief executive of Hesco for the post of revenue officer on May 24, 2003 and sat in a written test held on April 14, 2003 but was not taken on the job even after having passed the test.

He lodged an appeal to the chairman of Wapda, which was forwarded to the Hesco CE in a mala fide manner and the CE informed him after two years that he could not be appointed as RO although the company had made appointments during the period when his appeal was pending.

He then lodged another appeal to the federal ombudsman but did not receive any help, he said, praying the court to declare the respondents’ action as illegal and direct them to consider his appeal.

The court disposed of his petition on Feb 15, 2007 after the respondents promised to treat his departmental appeal on merit.

The court also urged them to disposed of the appeal in two months and entertain his application for the post of RO on merit and as per rules.

The petitioner lodged a contempt of court application against Khwaja Maqbool Ahmed, the then CE of Hesco after he was told that his departmental appeal had already been disposed of on May 12, 2006.

He filed a separate contempt plea against Zafar Iqbal Awan, director of human resources, seeking permanent injunctions against him and restraining him from appointing RO till the disposal of his earlier contempt of court application.

He argued that the respondents invited applications for the post of RO despite having knowledge of Feb 15 order.

The company changed the procedure for appointments for administrative reasons and re-advertised the said post in December 2007 for which he was not served with a notice.

He prayed the court to stay announcement of the result of written test held on March 5 this year.

The court said that the fact as to whether the petitioner was properly served with notice for interview held later after re-advertisement of the post would be solved when the petition was heard by a division bench of the court.