ISLAMABAD: Justice Miangul Aurangzeb of Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Monday referred to Chief Justice Athar Minallah a case filed against repatriation of teachers working in the federal capital under the wedlock policy.

Justice Aurangzeb was hearing the petition filed by Kausar Perveen seeking to set aside the repatriation orders issued by the Federal Directorate of Education (FDE).

The counsel argued before the court that the judge had given a comprehensive decision regarding deputation. But some clauses of the Constitution were overlooked therein due to which the rights of his clients and their children were affected.

FDE officials put hundreds of families in trouble by misinterpreting court order, says counsel

“Constitution guarantees that protection of rights of children and women will be ensured at every cost. Clause 3 of Article 25 was overlooked therein. Further injustice was done by officers of the FDE by drifting hundreds of families into agony by misinterpreting the court’s decision and issuing repatriation orders of the teachers.”

The counsel told the court that the seat of director legal at the FDE was occupied by a teacher; therefore, he had no capability to interpret the court’s decision. A woman, who is appointed as the director schools, is a teacher and she also is not capable of examining and understanding the court’s decision in true perspective.

Therefore, the counsel added, the court should not only suspend the orders of sending back his client to her native town of Sargodha but also issue a stay order “so that we could tell the court who could be hit by the court’s decision and who would not.”

The court may take into consideration this aspect that those who have put at stake the future of hundreds of families were capable to interpret the court order or not.

He argued that his client had two options after the decision of the FDE. “Either she should inform her provincial department through a letter that she cannot continue her service at her hometown to save her family and the

second is she should say to her children that they are now left at the mercy of Allah and she is going to join her job in Punjab.”

The counsel argued that the court had given a clear decision on the wedlock policy under which any male or female who has been posted on deputation cannot be sent back and an effective law was also in place in this regard.

He insisted that misinterpretation of the court’s decision will ruin the family system and children of the

affected teachers would not be able to live with their mothers. It will inflict an irreparable loss on the families, he added.

Published in Dawn, January 19th, 2021