LAHORE, Feb 7: The Lahore High Court on Tuesday ordered District Coordination Officer Ahad Cheema to file a written statement and explain under which law he sealed office of the trade unions registrar.

Justice Khalid Mehmood Khan ordered the DCO to immediately unseal the registrar office. He was hearing a petition filed by employees union of a five star hotel on the The Mall.

The judge issued this order when Cheema tried to justify his act and said he had the authority to seal trade unions registrar’s office. The judge remarked: “It was a government office, not a general store, which you sealed.” He directed Cheema to file his statement in writing by next date of hearing.

Petitioner’s counsel Aftab Ahmad Bajwa informed the judge that the hotel management got the registrar transferred before his office was sealed.

Justice Khan said the transferred registrar would conduct referendum of the hotel union and asked the registrar to submit a report on Feb 21 after completion of the referendum. After this the court will decide the matter of his transfer, the judge said.

Employees union president Nasir Sindhu had filed the petition, stating that the hotel management anticipated defeat of its favourite candidates in the referendum and got trade unions registrar’s office sealed. He said hotel’s human resourse director Shahzad Malik, who happened to be a close relative of the Lahore commissioner, manoeuvred sealing of registrar’s office.

The petitioner said the DCO acted illegally to please the hotel administration, sealed registrar’s office and confiscated the referendum record.

NOTICES: The Lahore High Court chief justice on Tuesday issued notices to federal government and ministry of petroleum and natural resourses on a writ petition challenging recent increase in POL prices and seeking disqualification of Dr Asim Husain.

The petitioner submitted that every citizen had the constitutional right to know about the method of determination of prices of petroleum products, cost of production and supply and other costs.

REPLY SOUGHT: The Lahore High Court on Tuesday sought reply from the University of Engineering and Technology vice chancellor on a petition filed by a student alleging discrimination.

Civil Engineering student Umair Zubair submitted that he could not appear in two of examinations due to a nose surgery and the VC rusticated him after turning down his medical leave application.

Justice Farrukh Irfan Khan directed the UET vice chancellor to submit his reply by Feb 27.

PETITION: A petition has been filed in the Lahore High Court for registration of murder cases against those responsible for a boiler explosion in a medicine factory on Multan Road.

Stay: The Lahore High Court chief justice on Tuesday extended stay against recruitment of educators (subject specialist teachers) by the Punjab school education department.

A law officer requested the court to withdraw the stay order, but the chief justice observed that the department had not published yet a corrigendum of mistakes committed in an advertisement for 30,000 vacancies of educators.

Advocate General Ashtar Ausaf appeared in the court on a short notice and undertook to get the court order implemented by the next hearing, Feb 14.

An aspirant from Chiniot, Saqlain Abbas, challenged the recruitment process alleging grave irregularities on the part of the department. And the court had stayed the process.