LAHORE: A two-judge Supreme Court bench on Thursday suspended a Lahore High Court order issued to the Punjab government about payment of the withheld 50 per cent judicial allowance to the court (LHC) employees by Sept 7.

The bench headed by Justice Ijaz Ahmad Chaudhry suspended the high court’s order on an appeal of the provincial government.

On behalf of the government, Additional Advocate General Shan Gull said the LHC passed the impugned order without hearing the view of the government that had no budgetary allocation for the judicial allowance.

He pointed out that such an allowance was not given to employees of any other department.

Saying that the high court employees demand was unjustified, the law officer asked the court to set aside the impugned order.

The bench, however, suspended the order and issued notices to all parties to the case for the next hearing.

Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah of the LHC had on July 28 directed the government to pay the judicial allowance to court employees.

Syed Riaz Ali Zaidi and other employees had filed a petition against the non-payment of the allowance announced by prime minister in 2010.

The petitioners said the PM had announced 50pc increase in judicial allowance for employees of all high courts in the country. They said the employees of Supreme Court and all other high courts except the LHC were given the allowance along with arrears.

They said five years had lapsed but the LHC employees were still awaiting the arrears of the allowance despite various directions of the court.

Published in Dawn, September 4th, 2015

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