KARACHI: The provincial authorities informed the Sindh High Court that the process of recruitment had been suspended and no appointment was made in the light of an interim restraining order issued by the SHC in August.

The single-judge bench headed by Justice Zafar Ahmed Rajput extended its earlier order restraining the defendants from processing the recruitment in over 140 departments, autonomous and other bodies of the Sindh government till Oct 16.

The Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan had filed a lawsuit in the SHC on Aug 8 contending that the then outgoing provincial government, its secretaries, departments, autonomous bodies, etc, had unleashed a mala fide and unlawful campaign to fill thousands of vacancies without observing formalities in order to carry out pre-poll rigging and dish out jobs to their favourites.

At the outset of the hearing on Tuesday, almost all defendant departments and autonomous bodies filed statements in the light of previous order and contended that the recruitment process had been suspended, the advertisements withdrawn and no appointment was made between June and August.

The secretary of services also filed a report of behalf of the chief secretary Sindh along with statements of departments concerned and submitted that in compliance with the Sept 19 order of the bench, the statements were called from the secretaries concerned and deputy commissioners, being head of selection committees, and they submitted that no appointment had been made in violation of interim restraining order issued on Aug 9.

The lawyer for plaintiffs, Dr Farogh Naseem, pointed out that another lawsuit on somehow same controversy was also pending adjudication before the SHC and asked the court to tag the same with the present proceedings for joint hearing.

The bench directed its office that both lawsuits were tagged and adjourned the hearing till Oct 16 and also ruled that interim order passed earlier will continue till next date of hearing.

Published in Dawn, October 5th, 2023