PESHAWAR: A Peshawar High Court bench has ordered the attachment of the salary of the head of the Accountant General Pakistan Revenue’s Peshawar office and additional AGPR for flouting its repeated orders to respond to a petition against restrictions on the payment of gratuity to several employees of the defunct Fata Development Corporation (FATADC).

Chief Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth and Justice Ijaz Anwar ruled that the salaries of the two respondents would remain attached until they filed comments on the petition.

The petition was filed by section officer Mohammad Ali Qureshi and six other employees of the defunct FATADC, who currently served in the Governor’s Fata Secretariat, challenging the Dec 21, 2017, order of the AGPR’s Peshawar sub-office through which the payment of gratuity was restricted to 30 years service.

The bench will again hear the case on May 22.

Respondents in the petition are heads of AGPR Islamabad and Peshawar offices, additional AGPR Peshawar and additional chief secretary of the Fata Secretariat.

The bench in its order pointed out that the additional chief secretary had filed comments on the petition on Nov 28, 2018, while the comments of AGPR, Peshawar, and additional AGPR were still awaited despite the issuance of reminders on Oct 8, Nov 28, Jan 10, Feb 7 and Mar 20.

Mohammad Farooq Afridi and Aminur Rehman Yousafzai, lawyers for the petitioners, said the impugned order of the AGPR would adversely affect 252 employees of the defunct FATADC.

They said on Jan 23, 2002, a meeting chaired by the then chief executive of Pakistan had decided to wind up FATADC by June 30, 2002, integrate its technical and industrial directorate with the Governor’s Secretariat, and place the remaining manpower in the surplus pool before absorption against vacant posts of the provincial government.

The counsel said the employees in surplus pool were later adjusted to the posts sanctioned by the government for the Fata Secretariat on their own terms and conditions of service applicable to them before the dissolution of the defunct corporation.

They said employees of the defunct corporation on retirement in line with their own terms and conditions were entitled to gratuity, CP Fund and leave encashment as retiring benefits of services in lieu of pension.

The lawyers said on the recommendations of a committee and in light of an SRO, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governor had approved on Aug 10, 2011, the enhancement of gratuity from one to four basic pay for every completed year of service as retiring benefits.

They said the respondents/AGPR sub-office Peshawar had restricted in financial years 2017-18 and 2018-19 the payment of gratuity to 30 years service on flimsy grounds through a letter on Dec 21, 2017.

The counsel added that the condition of 30 years service was taken into account while calculating pension liability of civil servants, whereas the petitioners were not civil servants in line with the a Supreme Court judgment.

They said the petitioners were not treated in line with the law and were discriminated against as the prevalent gratuity rules of the defunct FATADC didn’t bar the employees from drawing gratuity for more than 30 years for every completed year of service.

Published in Dawn, May 3rd, 2019