KARACHI, Aug 19: The Sindh High Court on Friday reserved order on a petition moved by several railway employees against their exclusion from the category of federal government servants for allotment of plots.

The petitioners said they applied for plots in the Federal Government Employees Housing Foundation scheme in Phase IV of Sector G-14 of Islamabad. The scheme is meant for employees of federal government ministries, divisions and attached departments in service on Nov 15, 2003, and 75 per cent of the plots in the scheme are reserved for such employees.

The petitioners said that they being in the employment of the railway ministry were eligible for plots from the 75 per cent quota and applied for allotment to the foundation. They were, however, told that they belonged to a different category of employees, for whom the foundation had reserved only eight per cent of the plots, and their applications could be considered only for allotment out of their quota.

Appearing for the petitioners, Advocate Zainuddin Khan argued that they were federal government employees under the 1973 rules of business and the respondent foundation had no authority to change their status.

The foundation said in its comments that the petitioners were employees of an organization administered by the federal government and not government employees. Government counsel Faisal Arab submitted that under the Railways Act, the petitioners were employees of the Pakistan Railways and not of the federal government. The petition was not maintainable and the Lahore High Court had already dismissed an identical petition.

A division bench, comprising Justices Anwar Zaheer Jamali and Syed Zawwar Hussain Jaffery, reserved order after hearing the counsel.

DUTY REFUND: Another division bench, consisting of Justices M. Mujibullah Siddiqui and Khilji Arif Hussain, directed the customs authorities to refund within three months Rs 8.8 million unduly recovered by them from a ghee mills on account of import duty on palm oil.