LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) has stayed the possible termination of dozens of contractual employees of the Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB) recruited for the Janki Devi Maternity Hospital.

Malik Muhammad Ziaul Haq and 34 others filed a petition, saying they were contractual employees of the ETPB’s education wing known as the Pakistan Model Education Institutions Foundation (PMEIF) and health wing i.e. Janki Devi Maternity Hospital, Lahore.

The petitioners said they were appointed in different years after fulfilling all legal formalities and they had been performing their duties since the last 20 years in the wings.

Advocate Akmal Khan, the counsel for the petitioners, argued that keeping in view satisfactory work and conduct of the petitioners, their contracts were extended from time to time but they had not been regularised by the authorities with malafide intention. He said even the service of the medical superintendent of the Janki Devi Maternity Hospital had not been regularised. He said the MS had forwarded neither her own case nor of the cases of her employees for regularisation to the competent authority.

The counsel asked the court to direct the ETPB to regularise the services of the petitioners, allow them to perform their duties and that their salaries might also be disbursed to them.

Justice Shahid Karim restrained the respondents from taking any adverse action against the petitioners and sought their replies by the next hearing.

Published in Dawn, January 21st, 2022