PESHAWAR: Peshawar High Court has declared that private schools in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are bound to extend social security benefits to their employees including teachers.

A bench consisting of Justice Syed Arshad Ali and Justice Dr Khurshid Iqbal, while rejecting a petition filed by Private Education Network (PEN) observed that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Employees Social Security Act (ESSA), 2021, being a beneficial welfare legislation, was rightly applicable to private schools.

It ruled that private schools undeniably fell within the ambit of ‘establishment’, to which the law was applicable.

PEN, on behalf of private schools in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, had challenged a notification issued on Jan 6, 2025, under KPESSA, whereby private schools were deemed to be falling within the definition of the term ‘establishment’ and liable to extend social security benefits to their staff, including teachers.

Bench rejects plea of Private Education Network and lifts stay order

The court had earlier suspended the impugned notification while granting interim relief to the petitioner.

Through the impugned notification, the commissioner of KP Employees Social Security Institution ordered applicability of the law to certain establishments including private schools.

It added that the employees of those establishments would be entitled to the benefits provided in different provisions of KPESSA.

The petitioner contended that private school were regulated under Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Private Schools Regulatory Authority Act, 2017 (KP-PSRA Act, 2017) and regulations framed thereunder and as it was a special law, it would prevail over the general law.

It was PEN’s stance that KPESSA placed onerous burden on private schools requiring “submission of various employee-related records, including attendance registers, salary details, overtime records, and bank account particulars of employees, etc.”

Advocate Ali Gohar Durrani represented Employees’ Social Security Institution (ESSI), whereas Barrister Asadul Mulk appeared for Private Schools Regulatory Authority (PSRA).

They took the stance that the scope and peripheral sphere of operation of the two statutes , KPESSA and KP-PSRAA, was altogether different, with the former concerned with social security for employees and the latter concerned with regulation of private school insofar as the same related to registration, operation, norm and standards, fee and sibling discounts etc.

Barrister Asadul Mulk argued that the fund maintained by PSRA under sections 13, 14 and 15 of KP-PSRA Act was not applied to provide social security benefits to employees of private schools, though it was applied for other lawful purposes.

In its six-page detailed judgement, the bench relied on a number of judgements of superior courts, wherein Employees’ Social Security Ordinance, 1965, was discussed.

Elaborating on the same principles, the bench held: “So far as the issue of functioning of some educational institutions on charitable basis is concerned, in our opinion, that will not place their case on any higher pedestal to exclude them from the applicability of such definitions as such character of charitable nature of an additional benefits offered/extended under the Ordinance of 1965, to their employees. As a matter of fact, proverb ‘charity begins at home’ will be squarely applicable to their cases”.

The bench observed that the simple question for determination was whether by means of the impugned notification, the petitioner had rightly been subjected to the legal effects of KPESSA as an ‘establishment’ within the meaning of its Section 2(n).

The bench ruled: “It is an inescapable conclusion that KP-PSRA Act, 2017 and Regulations of 2018 are confined to the regulation and supervision of private schools and have no nexus whatsoever with the provisions of social security benefits to employees. The provisions relied upon by learned counsel for the petitioners do not advance the petitioners case as they neither exclude ‘private schools’ from the definition of ‘establishment’ nor bar the application of KP-ESS Act, 2021.”

The bench declared: “Consequently, the point for determination is answered in the affirmative; and it is held that the impugned notification has been validly issued in exercise of statutory authority and that no illegality or infirmity can be attributed thereto. The writ petition is therefore dismissed.”

With the dismissal of the petition, the stay order issued by the court also stands lifted. Thus, from now on private school in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are liable to extend social security benefits to their employees, including teachers.

Published in Dawn, January 19th, 2026