ISLAMABAD: As many as 269 employees of the Pakistan Agriculture Research Council (Parc) have been told their appointments were against the rules and they have been issued notices to explain their positions.

An official of the council explained that in 2010, the then Parc chairman Dr Zafar Altaf had decided to regularise contractual employees on the recommendation of the Parc Departmental Selection Committee. Another chairman, Mohammad Afzal had in 2011 decided to terminate their services as their recruitments were made without advertisements.

The official said employees went to court but former prime minister Yousaf Raza Gillani formed a cabinet sub-committee, chaired by the current opposition leader in the lower house, Khurshid Shah. The sub-committee recommended regularising all contractual employees.

“The management also paid us all the salaries and arrears for the time we were not working. Now, once again, we are being served with notices of termination on the basis that the vacancies were not advertisements and that reinstatement orders were issued by the management without withdrawing the termination notices issued in 2011,” he said.

Management says their appointments were made without advertising posts, earlier dismissal notices were not recalled before reinstatement

The notice issued to employees says the cabinet sub-committee was not mandated to make such recommendations and that the premier was not in office when he approved the summary for their reinstatement on May 2, 2012.

“So far, six employees have been given the chance to explain their position and all of them were terminated from service. The situation has created panic as we have served as regular employees in BSP 1 through to 19 and some of us were even given promotions during the last six years, “one of the employees told Dawn.

He said that Mr Gillani was convicted by the Supreme Court on April 26, 2012 for not obeying its orders but he continued to perform duties as premier till June 19, 2012 when SC once again ordered his disqualification with effect from its earlier decision.

“In that period, the premier had taken many decisions, therefore under the Presidential Ordinance No VI of 2012, dated June 24 2012, all his acts, orders and other instruments done, made and issued from April 26, 2012 to June 19, 2012- both days included- were validated and notified in the Gazette of Pakistan. It is unfortunate that the Parc management is not ready to hear about the ordinance,” the official said.

Another official said the management is not taking into account that if the appointments were made without advertisement, it was the management which was responsible, not employees.

“It was also due to negligence by management that it did not withdraw termination notices. It is also being said that the regularisation of our services was illegal as the then chairman, Naveed Saleemi’s [appointment] was illegal. But this does not make sense because we were regularised by the cabinet sub-committee. The reinstatement order of 269 employees was issued by the Parc and the finance ministry sanctioned the budget for the payment of salaries,” he said.

A senior official said the notices were issued after the intervention of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB). He alleged that an official of NAB, Abid Javed was before the secretary of the National Food and Security and Research Division of which Parc is an ancillary department.

“He is well aware of the matters of Parc and has taken the matter up,” he said.

Parc Director Public Relations Maqbool Shahbaz told Dawn that the management sympathises with the employees but has to follow the rules.

“However, the issue was taken up as some employees were given up to Rs1.5 million for the period they did not work,” he said.

He said NAB took up the matter because it believes the cabinet sub-committee was empowered to regularise contractual employees and not to reinstate terminated employees.

Asked why the six employees were sacked, Mr Shahbaz said some of them were appointed at 50 and were regularised and that others were under-qualified.

Published in Dawn, May 22nd, 2018