In a clear violation of the Constitution of Pakistan, the defunct city government has continued to withhold pensions of its retired employees of defunct Karachi Development Authority for the last four months, while many are forced to undergo the financial ordeals, besides triggering outcry by the affectees, sources said on Monday.
They said that the city government is not paying pensions to its retired officials for the last four months, which is against the article 9 and article 14 of the Constitution. There is also a ruling of the Supreme Court of Pakistan and Sindh High Court, declaring pension withholding a criminal negligence, they added.
Pensioners alleged that payment of pension and medical assistance is being deliberately delayed for one month and two months in payment of pension and medical assistance. They said that it has also been noticed that payment of salary is made first which is by all means bad in the eye of law and social values. The pensioners deserve to be paid first.
Sources told Business Recorder that officers of finance department have been always involved in inordinate delay in the payment of pension and medical assistance. They said the Supreme Court in its judgement, reported in PLD 2007-SC 35, had taken serious view on delay in making payment of retirement benefits. It has been declared as criminal negligence and dereliction of duty assigned to the concerned official.
"The payment of pensionary benefit is not paid in time regularly, we have no choice other than to initiate legal proceeding against all the concerned authorities under civil & criminal provisions of law" said a retired employee of defunct city district government.
Comments
Comments are closed.