LAHORE, Dec 14: The Lahore High Court has ordered production of the record of promotions of executive engineers in the Communications and Works Department for adjudication in a writ petition filed by five senior-most engineers who had been denied promotion on account of audit paras pending against them.
Chaudhry Muhammad Anwar and other aggrieved executive engineers submitted in their writ petition that they were among 66 officers whose cases were presented by the provincial Communication and Works secretary to the Provincial Selection Board on July 9 for promotion against 22 vacancies of superintending engineers. Contrary to the promotion rules and precedence, the C&W secretary allegedly emphasized the necessity of audit paras for barring promotions irrespective of the inquiry position and punishments awarded.
The aggrieved engineers contended that information regarding the audit paras had been clandestinely prepared by one of the junior officers related to the C&W secretary who had been awaiting promotion without verification from the officers against whom the paras were pending. He and other junior officers got promoted after the promotion of their seniors was deferred on account of audit paras.
The aggrieved officers pointed out that they had called on the provincial C&W minister on learning about the use of audit paras for deferring their promotions and submitted a representation to the chief minister.
They also called on the C&W secretary and were assured of justice. But contrary to the assurance the C&W secretary got the promotions approved from the chief minister without asking for opinion of other departments on the subject and issued a notification.
The aggrieved officers pointed out that audit paras and inquiries were also pending against the following officers promoted by the Provincial Selection Board including the junior officer who prepared the audit paras record for the Provincial Selection Board:
Deputy Director (Design and Evaluation) Shaukat Qamar Trimbu, Seniority No 58, was cleared for promotion despite the fact that five draft paras involving over Rs2.5 million controversial payments and two anti-corruption FIRs were pending against him and he had been chargesheeted in seven road construction cases and awarded minor penalties in six others.
Executive Engineer Muhammad Siddiq Baloch, Seniority No 21, had eight audit paras involving controversial payments exceeding Rs4 million pending against him.
Deputy Secretary (Buildings) Saeed Ahmed Khan, Seniority No 91, was cleared for promotion despite his failure to attend the services training course as a senior executive and three audit paras involving controversial payment of over Rs2.5 million pending against him.
Deputy Director (Technical) Ghulam Abbas, Seniority No 66, was cleared for promotion despite the fact that five audit paras involving controversial payments of over Rs500,000 were pending against him.
Lahore Planning and Development Board Section Chief Hafiz Masoodur Rasool, Seniority No 67, was cleared for promotion despite the pendency of two audit paras involving controversial payments of Rs150,000.