KARACHI: A division bench of the Sindh High Court (SHC) has suspended operation of the order of a single bench through which it sent packing chairmen of five educational boards in the province.

The bench, headed by Justice Mohammad Shafi Siddiqui, also issued notices to the secretary of the universities and boards department, principal secretary to the chief minister and other respondents for a date to be fixed by the court office after 10 days.

On Oct 20, a single-judge bench of the SHC, through an interim order, had suspended five notifications issued between May and August this year about the appointments of chairmen of the Board of Intermediate Education Karachi (BIEK) Prof Naseem Ahmed Memon, Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISE) Hyderabad Prof Ahmed Ali Brohi, BISE-Sukkur Rafiq Ahmed Palh, BISE-Larkana Sikander Ali Mirjat and BISE-Mirpurkhas Syed Zulifkar Ali Shah on a lawsuit impugning their appointments.

The counsel for the plaintiff had argued before the single bench that the plaintiff and three others were shortlisted by the search committee for appointment, but instead of appointing them, the official defendants had notified private dependents as chairmen of the five educational boards without any competitive process and in violation of the judgments of superior judiciary.

SHC’s division bench issues notices on intra-court appeal of three chairmen

Later, the chairmen of Hyderabad, Sukkur and Larkana BISEs, through their counsel, filed an intra-court appeal before a division bench against the order of the single bench and pleaded the court to suspend the impugned order.

The division bench in its order states, “Learned counsel for the appellants submits that based on the purported facts, stated by the respondent/plaintiff in the suit, mandatory injunction was claimed and granted by court, by virtue whereof, short listed appellants/defendants in the suit, were virtually out of the consideration in relation to the notification which was issued in response to recommendations of the search committee functioning in pursuance of Act, 2022 wherein private defendants/appellants were appointed”.

The order said that according to the lawyer such principle of granting mandatory injunction was not followed in line with the judgment of the SHC passed in the case of Haji Ibrahim this year and it could not withstand prescribed tests.

“Notice to the respondents for a date to be fixed after 10 days time. In the meantime, operation of the impugned order shall remain suspended,” the division bench in its order concluded.

Published in Dawn, October 28th, 2023