Lahore High Court here Tuesday adjourned proceedings to April 21 in a petition of President PCS Welfare Association, Punjab and others challenging their suspension orders and issuance of show cause notices to them. LHC Chief Justice, Ijaz Ahmad Chaudhry deferred hearing on a request from petitioners/suspended officers, as their counsel Hamid Khan advocate could not appear before the court owing to some other engagements.
The petition was filed by President PCS officers welfare association Manzoor Hussain and eight others through their counsel Hamid Khan, submitting that DMG group has a strong lobby both at federal and provincial level, therefore, condition of PCS officers were unfavourable, particularly in the case of promotion and posting. They further said that Chief Minister Punjab had constituted a committee to resolve the issue, which made various recommendations to address the problem and it was assured that the same would be implemented by July 31, 2011.
However, Chief secretary Punjab and Additional Chief Secretary Punjab resorted to delaying tactics in this regard, they added. They submitted that under the said circumstances, association planned to call for a strike on March 21. However, on March 18, when some association members were handing out pamphlet for the purpose, secretariat police was ordered to arrest these them, they alleged. A group of around 100 PCS officers were illegally taken into custody and later a FIR was registered against 73 officers (including petitioners), the petitioners said, adding that they were released next day and requested for cancellation of FIR pending before Lahore High Court.