ISLAMABAD, April 4: The Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the reinstatement of a Wapda official whose job was terminated on the direction of an army captain.

The apex could directed the SDO and the executive engineer, who executed the orders of the army officer, to pay the employee of the Water and Power Development Authority all the back benefits from their own pockets.

Syed Yaqoob Shah was removed from service in 1999 by the executive engineer and the SDO of the Peshawar Electricity Supply Corporation after Capt Riaz Hussain, official in charge of army tasks, had ordered the termination of his job.

The SC bench, comprising Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, Justice Rana Bhagwandas and Justice Sardar Mohammad Raza, held that the record did not reveal on what basis the order had been passed and what authority the captain had to order the termination of the petitioner’s job.

The court held that the XEN and the SDO, instead of complying with the unlawful order, should have followed the prescribed procedure to punish the petitioner if he had been guilty of the offence of removing an electricity meter.

The court reinstated the petitioner with all back benefits, which would be paid to him by executive engineer Umar Farooq Bangash and SDO Gohar Ali personally at the ratio of 60 per cent and 40 per cent, respectively.

The court said: “We feel that on account of their conduct and non-following the procedure laid down under WAPDA employee (Efficiency & Discipline Rules, 1978), petitioner has suffered. As such for their negligence in performing duties public exchequer cannot be burdened by making payment of back benefits to the extent of the petitioner for the period during which he remained out of job.”