PESHAWAR: Scores of retired professors of different medical teaching institutions have complained that they await pension and only three of them have managed to get their legitimate post-service benefits during the past one year.
About 40 medical professors, in a letter sent to the health department, said that they completed services in Dec 2025 but their pension was not approved despite fulfilment of all requirements.
They said that amid long pendency of their cases, at least three of their colleagues fast-tracked their files, using personal efforts, while the remaining 40, who worked in specialties such as paediatrics, gynaecology, surgery, medicine, dermatology and ophthalmology etc, were awaiting government’s approval to get pension.
They said that those medical professors, who wanted to pursue their cases legally, suffered physically and mentally as they faced a dilemma of no final word from health department which neither rejected their cases nor approved them despite lapse of one year.
They said that the government wanted to discourage regular appointments as civil servants. After the last two batches, there would be no civil consultant, they added.
The letter has been signed by the consultants, who worked in Khyber Teaching Hospital, Lady Reading Hospital and Hayatabad Medical Complex.
They said that despite serving as doctors for about 40 years, the government didn’t give priority to their pleas for pension. “Saving lives of patients, teaching students and imparting training to medics pursuing specialisations, we are denied pension, a right guaranteed by the Constitution of Pakistan,” they added.
The retired professors said in the letter that delaying tactics were applied to withhold their lawful pension and commutation.
“Our cases are being kept pending for months and years without any legal justification,” they alleged.
They said that about 100 of their colleagues, who retired in 2016 and onwards, were getting their post-retirement benefits.
“It is discriminatory treatment and against the verdicts of the Supreme Court of Pakistan and the Peshawar High Court,” they added.
The letter said that in 2022, finance department had categorically mentioned that pension was not a bounty but a right of retired government servants.
Under existing laws, all administrative and teaching employees recruited by management council in prescribed manner under the repealed Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Medical and Health Institution and Regulation of Health Care Services Ordinance, 2002, were treated as civil servants at the time of promulgation of Medical Teaching Institutions Reforms Act (MTIRA), 2015.
It said that they were treated as institutional employees eligible for pension for the entire period of service i.e. civil service before the commencement of MTIRA, 2015.
The letter said that provincial government would provide benefits of pension to those civil servants, who opted for MTI services, for the period during which they served as civil servants according to provincial government pension rules through the office of Accountant General of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
For the period after promulgation of MTIRA, 2015, when they no longer remained civil servants, MTIs should deposit pension contribution on their behalf as per their rules and regulations, said the notification of the department.
The government will give benefits of pension to those civil servants, who were on deputation in MTIs, for the entire period of service spent as civil servants on deputation in the respective MTIs, according to provincial government pension rules through the office of Accountant General of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Published in Dawn, October 21st, 2026
