The plea concerns the government rules that unsettle the settled married lives of couples in its service. — Photo by AFP

ISLAMABAD: An unusual but genuine plea has reached the Prime Minister’s Secretariat - review the government’s ‘wedlock policy’.

The plea concerns the government rules that unsettle the settled married lives of couples in its service, specifically to the 170 female teachers who were serving on deputation in Islamabad under the ‘wedlock policy’.

Though the policy allows a woman government servant to be posted at the same station where her husband is, other rules say the deputation posting cannot last more than five years.

That is the case with the miserable 170.

“We have sent a summary to the Prime Minister’s Secretariat to review the wedlock policy and grant extension of two years to them,” additional secretary of the Capital Administrative and Development Division (CADD), Khalid Hanif, told Dawn.

Joint Secretary CADD Rafique Tahir said beside seeking annulment of the five-year term of deputation, the CADD had also asked the PM Secretariat to release the salaries of the teachers held up for the past three months because they have refused to return to their parent departments.

If the PM Secretariat approves its summary, the CADD would approach the law ministry for amending the deputation rules and wedlock policy, the official added.

It is learnt the CADD has decided to keep the 170 teachers on its rolls, with the hope that all the government departments seized with the problem would remove the contradictions between the wedlock policy and the deputation rules within the two-year extension that it has sought for them.

These teachers, some of whom had been on deputation for 10 years, were told to return to their parent departments after the Islamabad High Court dismissed their petition against the deputation rules in November last year.

However, in December they obtained a stay order against their repatriation in an intra-court appeal against the high court’s order.