PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court on Tuesday suspended a recent government notification of the appointment of the Peshawar Development Authority’s director general and temporarily stopped him from working on the civic agency’s top post.

A bench consisting of Justice Lal Jan Khattak and Justice Mussarat Hilali issued the order after holding a preliminary hearing into a petition jointly filed by the Peshawar Development Authority Officers Welfare Association and BPS-19 officers Qazi Laique Ahmad and Attaur Rehman against the notification.

It issued notices to the respondents, including the provincial government, seeking their response to the petition and ordered the fixing of hearing next week.

The petitioners requested the court to declare the appointment of Mohammad Ali Asghar (BPS-18) as the PDA DG through a notification issued on Jan 20, 2022, as illegal and against Section 9 of the PDA Act, 2017.

Seeks govt response to petition against notification of PDA DG’s appointment

They also sought orders for the respondent (Mohammad Ali Asghar) to explain under what authority, he held a post higher than his grade.

The petitioners requested the court to direct the provincial government to fill that post strictly in accordance with the law, especially by considering senior officers of the PDA/land area authorities (LAAs), in accordance with an undertaking submitted by the government to the court in another case.

The respondents in the petition are the provincial chief minister through his principal secretary, chief secretary, local government secretary, and Mohammad Ali Asghar.

M Sangeen Khan, lawyer for the petitioners, said that since the Provincial Urban Development Board (PUDB) was established through the PUDB Ordinance, 1978, the position of the PDA director-general remained the ‘promotion post’ reserved for the authority’s employees.

He added that under the PUDB Employees Services Rules, 1979, the position of the DG was notified to be a BPS-20 post.

The lawyer said that the provincial government had enacted the PDA Act 2017 in Oct 2017 and that Section 9 of that law provided that the post of the PDA director-general should be filled through initial appointment or transfer unlike the past rule and tradition of posting through promotion.

He said that a petition was filed by the petitioners with the high court in 2020 raising concerns on the matter and challenging Section 9 of the law complaining about the denial of prospects for promotion and appointment as the director-general.

The lawyer said that during the pendency of that petition, the government made another amendment to the Act substituting the BPS-20 grade of the director-general’s post with BPS-19.

He said that the government had filed comments on the petition with the court declaring that the petitioners, being the BPS-19 PDA employees, had not been excluded from the DG appointment process and that that assurance led to the disposal of the petition on Nov 3, 2021.

The counsel said that the amendments made to the PDA Act were person-specific and that the powers of the provincial government to appoint a director-general were given to the chief minister.

He said contrary to that assurance, a BPS-18 officer of the Pakistan Administrative Service was appointed as the PDA director-general.

The lawyer said that the law declared that only an officer of BPS-19 or above could be appointed to the said post.

Published in Dawn, February 2nd, 2022