HYDERABAD, Sept 18: The Hyderabad circuit bench of the Sindh High Court on Tuesday directed provincial secretary for education to appear in court on Oct 11 as the court heard a constitutional petition filed by seven former primary teachers who were terminated from service barely 10 days after receiving appointment letters.
The division bench passed the order after Additional Advocate General (AAG) Masood A. Noorani told the court that he had received no response so far from the secretary who had been informed of the court’s directive.
Advocate Ayaz Latif Palejo who represented the petitioners, Abdul Waheed, Tanveer, Ghuilam Qadir, Mohammad Saleem, Mohammad Moosa, Benazir and Mumtaz Rajput said that they were among the 876 candidates who were appointed in Mirpurkhas, Hyderabad, Sanghar and Nawabshah in BPs-7.
He said that all the candidates including petitioners who were from Digri had received appointment orders between October and Nov 17, 1998 in the wake of chief minister’s announcement on Sept 7, 1998 relaxing ban on appointments to posts lying vacant due to retirements or deaths in BPS 1 to 15 in education department.
The petitioners said that out of these appointments, 25 per cent of PSTs were appointed on teachers quota (retirement/death) and the remaining 75 per cent were appointed on merit.
But all of a sudden without issuing any notice or providing any opportunity of hearing to the aggrieved teachers the section officer of education issued a letter dated Nov 28, 1998 to the director of schools education (primary and secondary) of Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur, Mirpurkhas and Larkana, cancelling the appointments on grounds that they were made during the period when the ban on jobs was in force. Hence they were illegal and in violation of government instructions issued especially on Sept 7 and 22, 1998, the letter added.
Subsequently, the Mirpurkhas district education officer of primary issued an order on Dec 1, 1998, terminating services of the newly appointed PSTs, they said.
Four years afterwards Sindh education department issued a notification on Feb 9, 2005 to the EDOs of education of Hyderabad, Nawabshah, Sanghar and Mirpurkhas reinstating in service the politically-victimised teachers.
The deputy secretary of education (schools) stated in the letter that the chief minister had decided to reinstate them in service subject to completion of modalities and the law department was advised to implement CM’s orders by issuing appointment orders.
They said that after receiving the orders, district officer of education asked the assistant district officer of education elementary (male) Digri to provide a list of 68 teachers and watchmen belonging to Digri who were removed from service.
The district officer of education elementary issued a letter on Feb 23, 2005, reinstating all the sacked teachers but the petitioners who were also terminated under the same order in November and December 1998.
They said that the Mirpurkhas district officer of elementary education and Digri’s ADO of education left their names out of the list. When they complained to the assistant district officer of education and district officer of education they demanded illegal gratification in return for their reinstatement, they claimed.
They prayed the court to direct the officials concerned to comply with notification dated Feb 9, 2005 issued by deputy secretary of schools and requested the court to declare the officers’ discriminatory act as illegal.
The circuit bench on Nov 15, 2006 directed the authorities concerned to take a decisive step in the case within a period of three months starting from the date of receipt of order and submit a compliance report.
In case of non-compliance the secretary of education would be held personally responsible and might be liable to contempt commencement of proceedings against him, the court observed.