KARACHI, June 26: The Sindh High Court asked the education department to submit its comments on a petition moved by a number of persons seeking appointment as schoolteachers.

The petitioners claimed that they were among the 2,050 candidates selected in 2006 after a written test. They were medically examined and issued ‘offer letters’. Yet the department has opted to invite new applications and hold a new written test for teachers’ vacancies without first appointing the successful old candidates.

The petitioners’ counsel, Syed Khalid Shah, contended that they were selected out of hundreds of thousands candidates who appeared in the written test. The department could not seek fresh applications for the vacancies they had already been chosen to fill up.

A division bench comprising Justices Mohammad Athar Saeed and Qaiser Iqbal sought the respondent department’s comments by July 4 and asked to furnish a copy to the counsel. A deputy secretary of the department assured the court that the vacancies would not be filled up pending the petition.

ACTION AGAINST COPS: The bench directed the IGP to proceed against the policemen who involved Pir Bux Brohi in a fake encounter alleging that he was an accomplice of ‘notorious dacoit’ Mushtaq Brohi, who was himself killed in an encounter.