PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court on Wednesday issued a stay order stopping the public sector Khyber Teaching Hospital from reducing the salary and allowances of its employees under the recently-notified service regulations.

Justice Dr Khurshid Iqbal of a single-member bench also directed the major medical teaching institution not to act against its 32 staff members for challenging provisions of the MTI KTH/KMC/KCD Employees (Service) Regulations, 2022, on multiple grounds.

The bench also suspended action on the KTH’s Dec 15, 2022, notification, which directed all junior clerks to produce the relevant documents for promotion.

It issued notices to the respondents, including the provincial government through its chief secretary, health department’s MTI Policy Board, KTH’s board of governors through its chairman, and the hospital’s director (finance) seeking their formal response to the petition.

Stops hospital from acting against those who challenged new service regulations

The court directed the relevant high court office to place the petition before a division bench for hearing, whose schedule will be announced later.

The petitioners mostly include junior and senior clerks, stenographers and storekeepers, who requested the court to declare illegal several provisions of the impugned regulations to the extent of the petitioners’ promotions, denial of medical cover and reimbursement, and the omission of protected entitlements and benefits previously granted under the KP Medical Institutions Rules, 2001, and MTI (KTH, KMC and KCD) (Establishment, Administrative and Financial) Regulations, 2018.

They requested the court to declare those provisions unconstitutional and against the KP MTI Act, 2015.

The petitioners sought the court’s orders for the respondents, including the KTH’s board of governors, to restore the “basic pay system” of petitioners, including the right to leave and post-retirement benefits granted to them under the 2001 rules and 2018 regulations.

Mohammad Sangeen Khan, counsel for the petitioners, insisted that the impugned regulations changed the status of petitioners from regular employees to contractual ones.

He said that his clients were recruited as regular employees with that service protected by Section 16(2) of the MTI Act, 2015, as well as by a 2015 judgement by a full-bench of the high court.

The lawyer argued that the regulations also introduced an oppressive condition of requiring the petitioners to work in low grades or pay in case a post was created, abolished or re-designated.

He also said that the respondents had changed the salary structure from basic pay scale to grade system through the regulations without specifying the admissible salaries of the petitioners, causing undue unrest and uncertainty among employees.

The counsel argued that under the 2018 regulations, the petitioners had the privilege of gross annual salaries shown for the purpose of pension, provident funds and other benefits to be calculated according to the prevailing government rules, but currently, the impugned regulations were silent on that financial aspect of the employment benefits and instead, it seemed that those benefits had been done away with.

He said that for promotion, the well-recognised principle of seniority-cum-fitness had been replaced with that of merit-cum-fitness and the prospects of promotion were reduced by the introduction of difficult requirements of higher qualification.

Published in Dawn, January 5th, 2023