Judicial staff to get special allowance from July 1, SHC told

The additional finance secretary informed the Sindh High Court on Friday that a former chief justice’s order would be implemented from July 1 for giving a special judicial allowance to all cadres of officers and staff of the high court and district courts of the province.

The assurance came at a hearing of a petition of high court employees asking that an order be issued to the provincial government to notify the ex-chief justice’s directive for unfreezing the special judicial allowance for all cadres of officers and staff of high the court and subordinate courts with effect from July 1, 2016.

Mohammad Nusrat Ali and others submitted in the petition that the SHC registrar had on December 7, 2016, sent a letter to the law department for notifying the then high court chief justice’s directive.

They said the acting law secretary moved a summary on January 20, 2017, to the chief minister through the finance secretary, who sought a legal opinion from the advocate general, but despite the advocate general’s giving his opinion, no notification had been issued by the government till the filing of the petition.

They stated that such delaying acts on the part of the government, including the chief secretary and the finance secretary, showed that they were not notifying the order of the former chief justice, who was a fully competent authority in view of rules 15 and 17 of the Sindh High Court Establishment (appointment and conditions of service) Rules 2006.

The court was informed that the meeting of finance department officials with stakeholders was held and the additional finance secretary presented a formula for increasing the special judicial allowance. The provincial law officer submitted that it was unanimously decided by all stakeholders that the formula for the enhancement of the special judicial allowance that was one initial basic pay of the current pay scale including 50 per cent of the running basic pay of current pay scale was accepted.

The additional finance secretary said that the special judicial allowance would be implemented from July 1, 2018, for all cadres of officers of the SHC and the district courts. He also held out the assurance that the special judicial allowance had a cumulative/recurring effect and would not be frozen at any stage in future.

With regard to the request of the petitioners for the payment of arrears, he did not agree at this stage due to financial constraints; however, it was unanimously decided by the all stakeholders that a decision about the arrears may be deferred for the time being. It was further stated in the minutes of the meeting that a summary for the implementation of the special judicial allowance according to the formula would be submitted for approval to the chief minister.

A division bench headed by Justice Syed Hasan Azhar Rizvi took the statement of the finance officer and the minutes of the meeting on record and observed that it was expected that a summary should be placed by the finance department before the chief minister who would pass an appropriate order within three days or prior to the completion of the tenure of the present Sindh government and prepare a compliance report on May 28.