National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Speaker Mushtaq Ghani have been found guilty of misuse of authority by the K-P Services Tribunal in a case pertaining to the appointment the provincial assembly’s secretary.
In 2017, appellant Kifayatullah Khan was ignored for the position of secretary of the KP assembly despite seniority. His petition claimed that the departmental promotion committee (DPC) appointed a junior member, Nasrullah, in his place. Kifayatullah maintained that the appointment violated promotion rules and approached the DPC in November 2017 seeking orders to set aside the move. On the other hand, Nasrullah claimed that the tribunal did not have the jurisdiction to hear the petition as DPC had already made the decision while Kifayatullah’s departmental appeal was pending with the DPC. The lawyer maintained that the petitioner’s appeal was in violation of rule 23 and cannot be heard and hence be disposed of. However, the three-member bench of services tribunal observed in its verdict that the “appellant [Kifayatullah] was ignored on flimsy, whimsical and nonsensical grounds and in utter disregard to the criteria for the promotion laid down in the Services Rules of the Provincial Assembly.”
Published in Daily Times, January 3rd 2019
