July 05, 2008	Saturday	Rajab 1, 1429

KARACHI, July 4: The Sindh High Court issued a notice to the provincial population welfare department for July 11 in a petition moved by 11 female doctors against its failure to issue them appointment letters after their final selection by the Sindh Public Service Commission as medical officers.

The petitioners submitted that they applied for the posts in response to an advertisement published in a newspaper in January 2006. The applicants were called for a written test in October 2007. About 475 female candidates and 23 applicants for vacancies of male medical officers qualified the test.

The successful candidates were called by the Sindh Public Service Commission for interview/viva voce in January 2008. One hundred and thirty-one female and four male medical officers were finally selected and recommended by the commission in March.

About four months have elapsed since then but the successful candidates were still waiting for appointment letters. Their requests to the department and its high-ups have failed to elicit any response, the petitioners stated through advocate Mohammad Nawaz Shaikh.

They also alleged that attempts were being made to completely ignore the selection made by the department and the SPSC. Candidates selected by the SPSC for other posts together with them had already been issued appointment letters. They requested the court to direct the provincial government to appoint them to the vacancies they had been selected for and restrain the government from making fresh appointments to the same vacancies.

Issuing notices to the chief secretary, the respondent department and the SPSC, a division bench consisting of acting Chief Justice Azizullah M. Memon and Justice Khalid Ali Z. Qazi restrained them from passing any order adverse to the petitioners.

Society polls

The bench came down heavily on the cooperatives registrar for filing inadequate comments on a petition moved by a number of the members of the Rizvia Cooperative Housing Society and asked him to submit a fresh reply on July 8.

Meanwhile, the balloting for the managing committee of the society would be declared null and void if found repugnant to the rules, the bench warned.

The petitioners have submitted through advocate Amir Aziz Khan that the polls were being conducted under the aegis of the cooperative department in violation of rules and by-laws. Only one third of the committee’s membership can be elected at one time while the July 7 polls were meant for the election of the entire body in violation of the rules.

The voters’ and candidates’ lists had not been published and displayed in accordance with the rules. Finally, the polling station has been set up in Scheme 33 where only 68 members reside while the society’s registered office and over 1,700 of its membership lived in Nazimabad phase one.