The Islamabad High Court (IHC) Thursday set aside the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) decision banning recruitments in government posts till the general elections.
On April 11, the ECP had ordered a hiring freeze in appointments by federal, provincial and local governments to ensure transparency in the upcoming general elections as well as halting implementation of all development schemes taken up after April 1.
The federal and provincial governments had challenged the ECP order in the IHC.
After taking a suo motu notice of the issue, Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Saqib Nisar had on April 24 given the IHC a week to decide whether the order was legal.
Hearing the case, Chief Justice Nisar had observed that as per Article 218 of the Constitution, it was the ECP’s responsibility to hold transparent elections.
The ECP secretary had informed the apex court that they halted recruitments of government jobs to prevent pre-poll rigging and clarified that the federal and provincial public service commissions had been exempted from the order.
The court had then ordered that the Punjab government’s writ petition against the ECP order should be transferred to the IHC.
Moreover, Justice Aamer Farooq was directed to head the bench and conduct daily proceedings and until then, the ECP decision would remain in place.
Published in Daily Times, May 11th 2018.
