LAHORE: The Lahore High Court upheld the relaxation granted to the petitioners, beyond maximum upper age limit of 30 years and observed, “Parties should not be made to suffer for action or inaction of the authority who was obliged to follow the law”.
The court passed these observations in a petition of Malik Muhammad Yaqoob and others and directed the respondents to reinstate and regularize the petitioners in their service. The court said that it is neither the case of respondents that the appointing authority was not competent nor it is claimed that age relaxation orders were recalled being issued illegally or by incompetent authority.
The court observed that the contract appointment orders in respect of petitioners were not only issued after complying codal formalities but they also completed their contract tenure.
The court said the perusal of appointment orders show that same have been issued by the TMO upon recommendation of the Selection Committee. Therefore, the upper age of petitioners was relaxed under Section 5(3) of the Punjab Local Council Services Rules of 1983, the court concluded.
According to the details Tehsil Municipal Administration (TMA), Renala Khurd, advertised various posts of drivers & helpers. The age limit for said posts was 18 to 25 years and after applying upper age relaxation allowed across the board, the maximum upper age limit was 30 years.
The petitioners, who were few months beyond upper age limit of 30 years, were granted age relaxation for period beyond 30 years by the concerned TMA under the Punjab Local Council Services Rules 1983.
The petitioners were consequently appointed on contract for a period of three years. Their contract was also extended further. In the meanwhile, the regularization policy was issued by the Services & General Administration Department to regularize the services of contract appointees.
The petitioners, however, were not regularized on the ground that they were overage at the time of recruitment. They challenged the decision and got relief.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.