ISLAMABAD, March 9: Justice Noorul Haq N. Qureshi of Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Friday issued notices on a petition filed by a Baloch officer against discriminatory treatment.

Notices were issued to minister for overseas Pakistanis, secretary of the ministry besides secretary establishment division and special selection board (SSB) on the petition against the recent selection of commercial welfare attaché (CWA) in which not a single appointment was made from Balochistan.

The court sought reply from respondents till March 13 and adjourned the matter till next date of hearing.

Mohammad Bashir Khitran, the petitioner through his counsel GM Chaudhry adopted before the court that petitioner belonged to Balochistan and was working as director Privatisation Commission adding that he was entitled for the post of CWA and was also short-listed for final interview.

He, however, alleged that secretary ministry of overseas Pakistanis included the names of persons who had not even appeared for interview before the departmental selection committee. Surprisingly, they were selected and were being posted to the foreign missions because they were either well off or had political influence.

The petition said the ministry circulated information about vacant posts in different ministries on April 14 last year along with the guidelines for applying.

The candidates including the petitioner were called for interviews in September and October and on December 13, last year the short-listed candidates including the petitioner appeared before the special selection board for final scrutiny.

The process then proved to be merely eyewash as in February this year, the ministry secretly issued the notification for posting 10 attachés at different foreign missions.

According to him almost every appointment was politically motivated and it was a clear example of nepotism and favoritism.

He also pointed out that government completely ignored Aghaz-e-Haqooq-e-Balochistan package – a special initiative for people belonging to the province – during the selection process of CWA and the act frustrated the Baloch officers.

The appointment of attaché is like a fresh recruitment process from amongst the federal government employees and government should adopt the measures and steps to allocate maximum posts of CWA to the province of Balochistan as envisaged in Aghaz-e-Haqooq-e-Balochistan package, he added.

He requested the court to cancel selection of CWA and direct the respondents to induct suitable candidates from Balochistan instead. He also requested that selection of CWA should be done through Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC) headed by its chairman and a member from Balochistan.

It may be pertinent to mention that according to the notification regarding the appointments of CWA issued by the ministry of overseas Pakistanis, Punjab governor's son Sardar Balakh Sher Khosa was appointed as community welfare officer in the Pakistani high commission, London. The other CWA appointees were: Moinuddin of Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) at Riyadh; DG project coordination unit Peshawar, Mazharul Haq Kakakhel at Jeddah; deputy collector Haroon Waqar Malik at Kuwait; deputy commissioner income tax Fiza Batool at Malaysia; deputy commissioner inland revenue Amir Rehman at Tripoli; deputy managing director Punjab Small Industries Corporation Maqsood Qadir Shah (brother of district and sessions judge Sialkot Mehboob Qadir Shah) at Bahrain; Mohammad Aslam Ghauri at Barcelona, National Bank's officer Syed Tahseenul Haq at Jeddah and Syed Azhar Raza Hashmi from private sector at Doha.