ISLAMABAD, June 10: The Lahore High Court, Rawalpindi Bench, has issued a notice to the chairman of Pakistan Agriculture Research Council and member finance Dr Aleem Mehmood for refusing to implement the court judgment directing the government to pay back benefits to 53 scientists, who were sent abroad for higher education.

The petitioners had gone abroad for higher studies under the government scheme. When they returned and claimed benefits the government refused to pay them on the ground that they had overstayed.

The counsel for the petitioners, Advocate Mohammad Arshad Chaudhry stated that the Parc refused to give back benefits to his clients and forced them to approach the LHC which passed an order in their favour.

The Parc preferred an appeal before the Supreme Court which upheld the LHC judgment. A review petition was also filed by the council in the apex which, too, was dismissed. Even then the government did not budge and refused to give back benefits, he argued.

The Parc in its response, through Dr Mehmood, stated that the petitioners were not entitled to avail writ jurisdiction of the high court and should have approached the Federal Services Tribunal after the addition of section 2 A to the Government Servants Act.

On the merits, he stated that reliance on the case of Dr Waqar Malik and Dr Nasim Shahzad was erroneous as the PARC had recovered what had been paid to Waqar Malik in full and recovery of payment from Dr Nasim Shahzad was in progress.

The Parc stated that all the petitioners had gone abroad on government expense, stayed and worked there, besides none of them had been sent abroad on extra ordinary leave (EOL) basis, rather their training period was treated as leave.

It further said the petitioners had already benefited by condonation of disciplinary action for their overstay and financially benefiting from the family subsistence allowance not permissible to any other government servant.

The Parc will place before the court the record of the overstay of the petitioners, which varied from 20 months to 42 months and in case the government was made to pay them, it would cost them Rs80 million.

It will also point out to the court that out of 53 petitioners, the service period of 28 was only four years and of the remaining 25, varied from five to 11 years. None of them were entitled to EOL.