PESHAWAR, Sept 5: In a strange development, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government on Wednesday appointed the director general of Peshawar Development Authority for a day before replacing him by a junior officer.

Provincial Chief Secretary Arbab Shahzad issued a notification in pursuance to an order of the Peshawar High Court and transferred Sareer Mohammad Khan, project director at Mansehra Development Authority, and posted him as the director general of Peshawar Development Authority (PDA).

The notification states that Mr Sareer was posted with immediate effect to actualise his promotion in BS-20.

The post of the director general is of BS-20.

Interestingly, the chief secretary issued another order on the same day stating that Mr Sareer was appointed DG for one day and he had been transferred and posted project director at Mansehra Development Authority.

The said post was of BS-19 and therefore, the government also ordered to upgrade it to BS-20.

The government replaced him with another official Mohammad Saleem, stated to be close relative of a serving senior military officer.

Official sources said Mr Saleem was in BS-19 and had been posted to the BS-20 office.

A few months ago, the Peshawar High Court had ordered promotion and re-appointment of Mr Sareer as the director general of PDA as he was the most senior officer at the Provincial Urban Development Board (PUDB).

The PHC had earlier issued directives to the previous provincial government led by Awami National Party to promote and re-appoint Mr Sareer as DG.

However, the previous government did not implement the court order.

Later, over another contempt of court petition, the court issued orders to the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf-led provincial government in June to implement the order within 10 days.

Earlier, Mr Sareer, who was serving as DG and was replaced by another officer junior to him by the previous government, had moved the high court challenging the decision.

In the meantime, he was made an officer on special duty (OSD).

The PHC had accepted his petition and in Oct last year ordered the government to promote him to BS-20 and re-appoint him as DG of PDA.

He filed a contempt of court petition, but the previous government instead of implementing the order replaced then incumbent DG Qazi Laiq by Mohammad Saleem.