The fate of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Economic Zones Development and Management Company (KP-EZDMC)) and others hanging in balance as Law Department has given clear-cut opinion on the matter of the employment of dual nations in public sector organizations.
The opinion of the provincial Law Department was sought by the Industries, Commerce & Technical Education Department and Establishment Department respectively on Supreme Court judgment on dual nationality cases while Establishment have had also asked questions that whether a dual national can get service in Pakistan and whether Citizenship Act/law is applicable to the corporate/autonomous bodies?.
The Law, Parliamentary Affairs and Human Rights Department while giving opinion on the subject matter had quoted the Para-47 of the Supreme Court Judgment dated 15.1.2018 in a suo motu case No.3 of 2018, which holds that "the acquisition of foreign nationalities and permanent residence permits, etc by citizens during employment in the government service including autonomous/semi-autonomous statutory bodies/organizations and companies etc. which are owned/controlled/governed by the federal and/or provincial governments deserve no leniency and after determination by the competent officials must be given a deadline of either rescinding their foreign nationalities obtained during service or resign from service immediately. To the supplementary question of the Query No.1, the Law Department had stated that Citizenship Act is applicable to all the citizens of Pakistan, including Civil Servants and employees of Corporate/autonomous bodies.
In its letter to the Law, Parliamentary Affairs and Human Rights Department, the Industries, Commerce & Technical Education Department had mentioned the CEO, KP-EZDMC, Saeed Ahmad, who has dual nationality of Canada and Vice Chancellor, University of Technology Nowshera of Swedish nationality. However, the Industries, Commerce and Technical Education Departments had not given deadline to any of the mentioned employees and others.
In the backdrop of the opinion of the Law, Parliamentary Affairs and Human Rights Department, the authorities of Industries and Planning & Development (P&D) Departments have also started consultations and deliberations remained continued till late Monday light to tackle the issue in letter and spirit with the judgment of the Supreme Court.
On the other hand, the Board of Directors (BoD) of the KP-EZDMC has restored the services of Atique Sultan Raja, Manager Human Resource and Islam Gul, Estate Officer of the company.
The services of these two officers were terminated by the CEO, KP-EZDMC on December 3, 2018 while invoking Clause 5.1 of their employment contract. Atique Sultan Raja has had appeared before the National Accountability Board (NAB) regarding irregularities and favouritism committed in the hiring of the incumbent CEO while the Islam Gul was one of the signatory of the complaint submitted with the Human Rights (HR) Cell of the Supreme Court against the illegal appointment of the company's CEO.
According to sources, the Board of Directors (BoD) has not only restored the both officials rather have also clipped the powers of the CEO under Clause 5-1 of the employees' employment contract, which had rendered him impotent to terminate any employee of the company. Furthermore, the top national anti-graft agency (NAB) has also reportedly taken notice of the forgery of documents by the Member Legal, KP-EZDMC.
In wake of the judgment of the Supreme Court, the provincial government of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has started preparing the list of the dual nationals in different departments.