PESHAWAR, April 13: The Peshawar High Court on Friday issued show cause notices to the provincial finance and law secretaries over the contempt of the court charges against the government by a senior judicial officer, who complained of violation of a court order for payment of special judicial allowance to judges of subordinate judiciary in the province.
A bench comprising Chief Justice Dost Mohammad Khan and Justice Mian Fasihul Mulk admitted the petition to full hearing with the direction that the two secretaries file written reply within 20 days.
The petition is filed by additional district and sessions judge Amjid Zia Siddiqui, who said the high court had issued an order on July 6, 2010, directing the provincial government to pay special judicial allowance on the basis of one initial basic pay plus 50 per cent of running basic pay to all judicial officers and ministerial establishment of the high court.
He claimed that last year, the government froze the said allowance though the court had ordered payment of 50 per cent of the allowance on the basis of running basic pay.
Ziauddin Siddiqui, lawyer for the petitioner, said prior to the institution of the petition, his client repeatedly asked the provincial finance and law secretaries to review their decision to freeze the allowance but they didn’t even respond.He said currently, all provinces except for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had implemented the National Judicial (Policy Making) Committee (NJPMC) decision and provided transport facilities to all judicial officers of their province.
The petitioner’s lawyer said in 2008, Punjab notified Rs14,000 as judicial allowance, Rs8,000 as utility allowance, Rs7,000 as transport allowance and 300 per cent of initial basic pay as special judicial allowance for all judicial officers of the province.
He said the next year, NJPMC recommended removal of disparity in salary of judicial officers of all four provinces and that salary of remaining provinces be brought on a par with that of Punjab.
The lawyer, however, said the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government was reluctant to implement the said decision forcing some judicial officers to move the high court for relief.
The high court had partially allowed the said writ petition on July 6, 2010, and directed the provincial government to pay the special judicial allowance on the basis of one initial basic pay plus 50 per cent of running basic pay to all judicial officers and ministerial establishment of high court.
According to the petitioner’s lawyer, in pursuance of said directions, the finance secretary issued a notification on July 27, 2010, intentionally freezing the said allowance and thus, converting the ‘running pay allowance’ into ‘non-running’.
