LAHORE: The Lahore High Court on Friday restrained three PML-N parliamentarians from functioning as members of the Punjab Education Foundation’s (PEF) board of directors (BoD) and sought a reply from the government about their appointments.

Advocate Chaudhry Shoaib Saleem had filed a petition challenging appointment of PML-N MNAs Sara Afzal Tarar and Rana Afzal and MPA Engineer Qamarul Islam Raja as members of the PEF BoD.

The petitioner pleaded the appointments were a result of sheer political consideration. He said the Punjab School Education Department secretary had issued a notification on Dec 22, 2014, and constituted a new board of directors. He said the new BoD was against the law that governed the PEF.

The lawyer argued the respondents were public servants and did not fall within the definition of private persons, which was necessarily to be included from private sector as per Section 5 (1) (2) of the Punjab Education Foundation Act, 2004. The petitioner asked the court to set aside the impugned appointments for being illegal.

Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah temporarily stopped the three respondents from functioning as member of the PEF BoD and sought reply from the authorities concerned for April 16. The judge also issued notices to other members of the BoD.

Published in Dawn, March 28th, 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play