LAHORE, Dec 15: A Lahore High Court judge on Monday directed the communications and works department to inform the court whether any audit paras were pending against the junior engineers promoted by its provincial selection board in July, on the next date of hearing.

The judge gave the direction to the C&W additional secretary who appeared along with the record of the selection board proceedings during the hearing of a writ petition filed by five senior-most executive engineers denied promotion on account of the pendency of audit paras against them. The record did not contain audit paras against the executive engineers promoted by the board.

Petitioner Chaudhry Mohammad Anwar submitted that the audit paras against eight junior executive engineers promoted as superintending engineers had not been presented in the board meeting to facilitate their promotion. He produced the copies of audit paras pending against the promoted engineers in the court submitting that the C&W secretary had chargesheeted one of the promotees, Ghazanfar Hasan, recently on the basis of an audit para pertaining to excess payment for installation of a tubewell and construction of a water reservoir in Faisal Town.

When asked about the source from where the petitioner had procured the copies of audit paras, he submitted that these were part of the paras printed by the auditor-general every year but had not been presented before the selection board to facilitate the promotion of junior engineers.

The petitioners were among 66 officers whose cases were presented by the C&W secretary for consideration by the provincial selection board on July 9 this year for promotion against 22 vacancies of superintending engineers. Contrary to the promotion rules and precedence, none else but the C&W secretary emphasized the necessity of audit paras for creating a bar for promotions irrespective of the inquiry position and punishments awarded. — Reporter