The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Wednesday disposed of a petition filed by an SDO in the Department of Housing and Urban Development, a grade-16 officer, against his frequent transfers, by ordering the Punjab chief secretary to decide the fate of his application in one month’s time.
The court gave these orders on the first day of the hearing of a petition filed by Muhammad Ashraf against his fifth transfer in as many as six months, being shuttle cocked from one seat to another.
Iftikhar Ahmad Mian Advocate, who represented the petitioner, told the court that his client had been transferred five times in just six months on political grounds.
He further said that the petitioner had even approached the Punjab Services Tribunal for the remedy, but returned empty-handed. “And now when the appeal has been filed with the provincial chief secretary, it, too, has not been decided as yet,” he said, and added that therefore it was prayed to the court to order the chief secretary to give his verdict on the application, and unless the application’s fate was decided, the authorities were barred from executing the transfer order.
It is worth pointing out here that unprecedented transfers made by Sardar Usman Buzdar ever since he has become the Punjab chief minister have become quite a headache for the bureaucrats.
