KARACHI, Aug 20: The Sindh Services Tribunal reinstated two dismissed officials on Saturday and remanded their cases to the city district government (CDGK) and the anti-corruption establishment for fresh departmental inquiries in accordance with the law and rules.

Aqeel Ahmed Baig, additional director, kutchi abadis, Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (since superseded by the CDGK), was sacked under the Sindh Local Council Servants (Efficiency and Discipline) Rules in July 2000 for unauthorizedly executing leases for 11 plots in Sherpao Basti, Laiqabad and Gizri. He was earlier served a show cause notice and his reply that he had been transferred from his post before execution of the lease documents, that the leases were executed with his forged signatures and that a criminal case registered in respect of the leases was pending trial in a court was found unsatisfactory.

Noor Mohammad, circle officer, anti-corruption establishment, Jacobabad, was compulsorily retired under the Sindh Police (Efficiency and Discipline) Rules in December 2001 for extorting bribe from Anwar Ali Soomro, head clerk, sub-divisional education office, Jacobabad, who was involved in embezzlement of over Rs 9.3 million along with others. He was earlier issued a final show cause notice on the basis of a fact-finding inquiry conducted by a deputy director of the establishment. His reply denying the allegation was not found satisfactory.

An SST bench, headed by the tribunal’s chairman, Justice Abdul Ghani Shaikh (retired), held in both the cases that regular inquiries under the efficiency and discipline rules were essential before the appellants could be punished with major penalties. The appellants should have been afforded full opportunity to contest the allegations against them. A fact-finding probe was no substitute for a regular inquiry wherein an accused can cross-examine witnesses against him, it observed.

By separate judgments, both the appellants were ordered to be reinstated to ‘clothe them with the status of civil servant’ for the purpose of facing regular departmental inquiries. Their status during the intervening period would depend on the outcome of fresh inquiries. Advocate Mohammad Nawaz Shaikh appeared for the appellants and Assistant Advocate-General Tabassum Ghazanfar for the respondent departments.