LAHORE - Punjab bureaucracy resumed work on Monday with some Pakistan Administrative Services (PAS) officers wearing ‘No More’ badges to show solidarity with Ahad Khan Cheema – a senior bureaucrat who is in NAB custody.
The former LDA director general, being probed by the National Accountability Bureau, allegedly received 32 kanals of land from Paragon City (Pvt) Ltd for awarding Ashaiana Housing project contract illegally.
The administrative crisis created by the strike of PAS, better known as District Management Group (DMG), ended after Chief Secretary Punjab Zahid Saeed on Sunday gave directions to open all the offices.
Additional Chief Secretary Umar Rasool – who is leading the protesting officers, said that from now on the officers will work wearing ‘No More’ badges, and to make the campaign popular he gave a spin by saying the badges meant that no below the merit work will be committed at any cost.
But most of the officers were not impressed and they stayed off the badges drive.
The officers from Provincial Management Services (PMS) are already against creating fuss over the arrest of Cheema, and they said on Monday they won’t wear the badges.
A leading faction of the DMG Association however is committed to serve the cause of Ahad Cheema, and they said they would provide all assistance to the besieged officer.
They said they believe in fair and transparent accountability but would resist every effort to hurt self-respect of the officers and won’t accept any mistreatment to them.
Petition against protesters
A lawyer on Monday approached the Lahore High Court challenging pen-down strike and protest by officers of Pakistan Administrative Services in support of Ahad Cheema.
Hamayun Faiz Rasool advocate moved the petition through another lawyer, Azhar Siddique, submitting that civil servants had been on strike in violation of service rules.
He contended that Punjab Civil Servants (Conduct) Rules, 1966, do not allow civil servants to go on strike or hold protest against the state or state institutions.
He stated that the rules disallow civil servants to form unions but PAS officers have made their association, and they had been using it to pressure state institutions. The officers cannot even close the public offices, he further said.
He argued that by holding protest PAS officers had violated Pakistan Essential Services (Maintenance) Act 1952, which makes them bound not to leave their workplace for protest.
The PAS officers, the petitioner argued, had shown disloyalty to the state and its organs. He said the officers had violated Article 5 of the Constitution by protesting against the NAB, which is a constitutional institution.
The petitioner prayed the court to declare the pen-down strike of PAS illegal and unlawful and order the officers to not create hurdles in NAB’s way.
He also prayed the court to take disciplinary actions against additional chief secretary Umar Rasool and others who led and joined the protest and locked down their officers.
In a related development, a member of the civil society also moved an application before the Sessions court seeking registration of FIR against the additional chief secretary and other PAS officers for going on strike.
Abdullah Malik, president of Civil Society Network, said he approached the Civil Lines Police Station but police was not entertaining his plea for FIR. He prayed the court to order police to register a criminal case against the protesting officers.
Babus resume work but remain divided
Faizan warraich/fida hussnain