Zubair Qureshi
Chief Justice (CJ) Islamabad High Court (IHC) Athar Minallah on Monday expressed his surprise how the Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) could take shelter behind a judgment of the IHC and repatriate hundreds of teachers to their parent departments without considering wedlock policy.
“The judgment, the FDE is referring to, too doesn’t give any specific power to the directorate to do so,” the chief judge of the IHC further remarked during hearing of several petitions filed by the lady teachers who have been directed by the FDE to leave the Islamabad schools immediately and report to their departments in the parent department.
Interestingly, the same FDE a few years earlier had asked these teachers to submit permanent No Objection Certificates (NOC) so that their cases for absorption could be considered.
Now their parent departments are not ready to accept these teachers and FDE has also sent them packing. In Monday’s hearing the Chief Justice asked the FDE officials to read loudly the judgment of another bench of the IHC on whose basis the FDE claims it has issued repatriation orders to these teachers.
Nowhere in this judgment is stated that you should send all these teachers in one go, said the chief justice adding the court would like to know if it (FDE) had absorbed some teachers and on which criteria and why others were left out.
In the order, the judge observed, “The petitioners have asserted that they have been working to the satisfaction of the competent authority since a long time. Some of them have been working since 2006 and the competent authority from time to time has extended a period of deputation.”
The judge also desired that the FDE should “explain the wisdom behind filling the posts yet again through transfer on the basis of deputation,” the judge further observed in the order.
The lawyers told the CJ IHC during the hearing of the case that FDE overlooked wedlock policy law entirely and due to which several families were affected. On the other hand constitution guarantees the protection of rights of women and children.
