The Lahore High Court on Friday allowed a petition of 87 Assistant District Public Prosecutors and referred the matter to Punjab Public Service Commission, seeking regularisation of their services. Petitioners, including Mehmoodul Hassan and others, submitted that the former Punjab chief minister Pervez Elahi had appointed 750 Assistant District Public Prosecutors on one-year contract. Later, they approached Supreme Court for regularisation.
However, the prosecution department took a plea before the court that it could not regularise the services of the petitioners. They said the SC had constituted a committee to interview the prosecutors and, out of 750, only 87 including the petitioners succeeded and they were given another contract of one-year.
Later, Punjab government in 2010 approved regularisation of all contract employees working in different departments, but the prosecution department had not made their services regular. Resultantly, they filed petition in the LHC for their regularisation in light of the provincial government decision.
The petitioners said that the department terminated their services on June 30, 2011 and restrained them from working on the pretext of that their service contracts had been terminated or came to an end. They pointed out that LHC on March 30 last had restrained the department from taking any adverse action against them during the pendency of the petition.
The petitioner therefore prayed to the court to direct the respondent department to allow them to perform their duties as before June 30, 2011 and to regularise their services in the light of the government decision. The counsel for the prosecution department in his concluding arguments stated that the petitioners could not be regularised unless they passed examination held by Punjab Public Service Commission. He said that 156 posts of prosecutors are lying vacant in the department, which will be advertised soon through Public Service Commission. The counsel suggested that the petitioners should participate in the examination to be conducted by the Commission.
The petitioners' counsel had requested the court to direct the department to refer the cases of the petitioner to Public Service Commission. However, the department's counsel said the department could not do so. The court after hearing both sides had reserved its verdict, which was announced here on Friday.
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