HYDERABAD, Feb 6: The Sindh High Court, Hyderabad circuit bench, here the other day directed the Sindh education secretary to appear before the court if he failed to redress grievances of 24 teachers by Feb 19.

The teachers had filed a joint constitutional petition, praying the court to declare respondents' action of not including services they had rendered prior to nationalization of private educational institutions in integrated seniority list a violation of the SHC judgment.

They had served before 1972 in colleges and schools which were nationalized under the Martial Law Regulation 118.

Their counsel argued before the court that the SHC had directed respondents Sindh chief secretary and secretary for education on Sept 2, 2003, to decide the issue in three months in the light of a decision of the Supreme Court in civil appeals 1085 and 1987 of 1996.

Sindh additional advocate general Masood A. Noorani said the court directive had been communicated to the secretary for education by his office but no response had so far been received.

Earlier, Wali Mohammad and others had challenged government's action through a petition.

The high court allowed the petition with directives to the respondents to prepare a seniority list of all officers of BPS-17, including the petitioners, in accordance with section 8 of the Sindh Civil Servants Act, 1973.

The apex court had dismissed Sindh government's civil appeals, challenging the high court judgment, passed in the matter of Wali Mohammad and others. The petitioners said they had made several representations to the respondents and also approached the Sindh ombudsman but to no avail.

They prayed the court to declare the action of the respondents of not including in the seniority list their services prior to nationalization illegal.

Section officer Nisar Ahmad Shaikh in his comments before the court said no violation of the high court judgment had been committed and claimed that the department had issued a provisional integrated seniority list on March 11, 2002.

However, he said, the same had been revised keeping in view representations made by aggrieved incumbents and recommendations of a committee constituted by the department to examine the representations. He said draft final integrated seniority list had been submitted to the competent authority for approval.