KARACHI: The Sindh High Court on Thursday directed the provincial authorities to pay the arrears of the allowances to the members of provincial assembly within three weeks.

While hearing a set of petitions moved by the lawmakers belonging to Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan and Paki­stan Muslim League-Functional seeking payment of basic pay and allowances under the Sindh Laws (Amen­dment) Act 2017, a two-judge bench headed by Justice Mohammad Ali Mazhar warned that contempt proceedings will be initiated against all the respondents if the amount was not paid within the stipulated period.

At the outset, a deputy secretary and a section officer of finance department informed the court that in compliance with an earlier order of the bench, a summary has been approved by the Sindh chief minister and the matter has been forwarded to the standing committee of the cabinet for approval since they contended that this requirement was necessary as the amount was out of budget.

They further maintained that the approval of standing committee was required keeping in view the directions of the chief minister.

The bench observed that this amount accrued to the members of Sindh Assem­bly on account of amendment in the Sindh Assembly Members (Salaries and Allowances) Act, 1974 vide the Sindh Laws (Amendment) Act, 2017, but des­pite lapse of a considerable period the arr­ears of the allowances have not been paid. As a last chance three weeks’ time is granted. If during this period the amount is not paid then we will initiate contempt proceedings against all the respondents, it added

Khurram Sher Zaman, Dr Seema Zia, Syed Sardar Ahmed, Nusrat Seher Abbasi and others through their counsel Aslam Bhutta submitted that the Sindh Laws (Amendment) Act was passed in 2017 and the provincial assembly secretary submitted a summary to the chief minister on Sept 7, 2017, seeking additional funds amounting to Rs666.22 million for meeting the shortfall in funds for MPAs’ salaries during the financial year 2017-18.

However, the MPAs contended that the finance secretary had submitted a note to the CM on Oct 6, 2017 to approve Rs664.48m instead of Rs664.22m to meet the shortfall in funds for the salaries of the lawmakers but the relevant provision of the law was not implemented yet.

Impleading the chief minister, chief secretary, finance and law secretaries and others as respondents, they submitted that the basic pay and allowances of the MPAs had been increased under the act from Rs72,000 per month to Rs145,000 while the salaries of the CM, the speaker and the ministers had also been doubled, but they have not received arrears yet.

Plea against Kamal’s suspension dismissed

Another two-judge SHC bench on Thursday dismissed a petition challenging the suspension of Pak Sarzameen Party chairman Syed Mustafa Kamal from the post of ‘Project Director Garbage’ by city Mayor Wasim Akhtar.

The bench headed by Justice Mohammad Shafi Siddiqui expressed resentment with the petitioner and questioned the move to challenge the suspension order of Mustafa Kamal when his appointment was not in accordance with formalities.

Syed Iqbal Kazmi petitioned the SHC and contended that the city was facing serious sanitation problem and proper disposal of garbage due to lack of interest of city mayor and local government department. Impleading the incumbent and former mayors as well as secretary local bodies as respondents, the petitioner argued that the mayor appointed PSP chief as ‘Project Director Garbage’ after the latter challenged the mayor to clean Karachi in 90 days.

However, he maintained that the mayor suspended the notification on the following day without issuing a show-cause notice. The petitioner argued that the notification could not be suspended without serving a show-cause notice to the former mayor and pleaded to declare the suspension order illegal.

Published in Dawn, August 30th, 2019