LAHORE, Jan 18: The Punjab Revenue Department has paid the withheld salary arrears to the tune of Rs96,351 to a condemned prisoner on the intervention of Provincial Ombudsman Justice Sajjad Ahmed Sipra (retired).

Muhammad Room-i-Azam had submitted that the Revenue Department suspended him from service in June 1997 when he was working as a patwari in Gojra and was arrested because of his involvement in a case.

He was sent to jail in November 1997 and the department did not pay him the salary for his period of suspension from service.

The Gojra deputy district officer (revenue) informed the ombudsman that the complainant had been involved in a murder case and sentenced to death by an Anti-Terrorist Court of Faisalabad.

The judgment was, however, not conveyed to the department. The DDO conceded that the prisoner had not been paid his salary dues from November 1997 to August 1999.

Ordering payment of the dues to the complainant, the ombudsman observed that a serving or suspended government servant was entitled to receive his salary till the date of his termination from service.

The department had paid his salary till the date of his conviction but stopped doing so afterwards despite the fact that he was not terminated from service.

The complainant was thus entitled to receive his salary for the entire period of his suspension from service.