LAHORE, July 30: The Lahore High Court (LHC) has issued notice to the advocate general (AG) for today (Thursday) in an application to stay the termination of prosecutors removed by the Punjab government on July 25.

Whereas the court fixed the stay application for hearing today (Thursday), it admitted for regular hearing the main petition against the termination order and sent it to the office for fixing its hearing.

The government had sacked three additional prosecutors general, 18 deputy prosecutors general, 83 deputy district prosecutors and 383 assistant public prosecutors. Addressing a press conference, Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah had alleged that the previous rulers had been giving lucrative salaries to these officials to protect their interests.

He said that the prosecutor general was getting a Rs200,000 salary per month, additional prosecutor general Rs150,000, deputy prosecutor Rs75,000 and public prosecutor Rs65,000.

Challenging the decision, some 70 petitioners, Shafqatullah Butt and others, said they were appointed as deputy prosecutors general on different dates ranging from June 2006 to September 2007.

They said tenure of every incumbent started “with effect from the date he assumed the charge of the post till recruitment under Contract Appointment Policy, 2004. The tenure may be revoked if he is found guilty of misconduct etc. after due process,” they added.

They said the government terminated their service “upon their failure to qualify in interviews conducted by a selection committee”. They said their order of termination was illegal because the executive authority of the province had to be exercised in the name of the governor, which had not been done in this case.

They said they were removed in the name of failing to get through the interviews despite the fact that they were brought into service after they cleared their interviews. “It is settled practice and principle of law that interviews are taken before appointment and not after appointment. Accordingly, the interviews after appointment were conducted as a formality towards regularisation of service but instead of regularisation, the petitioners were removed from their service illegally, arbitrarily and mechanically, they added.