PESHAWAR, Sept 18: The Peshawar High Court on Tuesday ordered the provincial government to enhance judicial and utility allowance of over 3,000 subordinate judicial staffers by 70 per cent of the allowance given to their counterparts in Punjab.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Dost Mohammad Khan and Justice Irshad Qaiser accepted request made by the provincial government not to pay arrears to judicial staffers and said enhancement of allowance would be applicable from the date of the judgment.It took around two years for the court to decide about two identical writ petitions about the matter as it had asked both the parties, the provincial government and employees, to evolve a consensus formula for enhancing the allowance as the government claimed that Punjab was a rich province and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa could not pay the allowance equivalent to that.

Shumail Ahmad Butt, lawyer for the provincial government, said 65 per cent of the enhancement in allowance suited the government.

Abdul Lateef Afridi and Barkatullah Khan, counsel for petitioners, said their clients would agree to 70 per cent of the allowance given to their counterparts in Punjab.

Also, the bench reserved its verdict in two identical contempt of court petitions regarding non-implementation of court’s order about special judicial allowance to the judges of the subordinate judiciary and the ministerial establishment of the high court.

Petitioners said the high court had issued an order on Jul 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.

The petitioners said in pursuance of said directions, the provincial government issued a notification on July 27, 2010. They said on the basis of another notification issued on July 14, 2011, the secretary finance intentionally froze the said allowance and thereby converted the “running pay allowance” into “non-running.”

Shumail Butt, lawyer for the secretary finance, said the petitioners were aggrieved with Clause 9 of the said notification which was related to the judicial officers.

He added that if the said clause was withdrawn then the judicial officers here would be receiving allowance more than the one given in Punjab, which was a rich province as compared to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.