ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Thursday gave a nod to the promotion of five senior officials of the Capital Development Authority (CDA).

However, out of the five, only three would benefit from the court order since one of them, director Roshan Khan, has died due of Covid-19 and another Ramzan Sajid has been repatriated to his parent department and appointed as director public relations in the Senate.

The other three - Khizar Satti, Safdar Shah and Naeem Dar - are working as directors in different directorates of the civic agency.

They were promoted to BS-19 in 2015. However, the authority then recalled their promotion orders and reverted them to BS-18.

The officers then challenged their demotion in the IHC.

IHC Justice Lubna Saleem Pervez allowed their petition. However, the CDA filed an intra-court appeal before a two-member division bench which on Thursday dismissed it.

CDA’s counsel Saqib Bhatti argued that the single-member bench had issued the orders without any written approval form the CDA chairman.

The petitioners through their counsel Kashif Ali Malik and Qazi Adil Aziz argued that being senior-most they were considered for promotion by the Departmental Promotion Committee (DPC) and notified after which they assumed the charges as well.

The CDA could not have unilaterally withdrawn the promotion orders after they had taken effect.

Published in Dawn, June 4th, 2021