ISLAMABAD, July 18: The Employees Old-age Benefits Institution (EOBI), set up in the 1970s to secure the interest of private sector employees, has again been caught in the wrong, this time for recruiting political nominees despite restraining orders from superior courts.

Dawn has learnt that the EOBI is all set to recruit 429 employees in BPS 1 to 20, most of them allegedly nominated by influential PPP parllamentarians.

Tests for the posts were held by a company, NCMBS, in various cities on May 27 and since then the management has completed the process of appointing the alleged PPP nominees.

Officials said appointment letters would be issued to those recommended by the ruling party`s leaders.

This was despite an order issued last year by a Supreme Court bench comprising Justice Javed Iqbal and Justice Khilji Arif Hussain, on writ petitions against alleged illegal appointments, restraining the management from making fresh appointments until the case was decided.

Dawn is in possession of a few letters addressed to the EOBI chairman by the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, a federal minister, a special assistant to the prime minister, a PPP MNAand three MNAs belonging to the PML-Q.

While PAC Chairman Nadeem Afzal Gondal has given a two-page list of 31 candidates from his constituency, PPP MNA from Dir Najmuddin Khan has also recommended 31 names, mentioning a discussion that took place in the chamber of the federal minister for religious affairs.

Climate Change Minister Rana Farooq Saeed Khan has recommended two persons for appointment, PML-Q`s Minister of State Muhammad Raza Hayat Harraj 13 and Senate Deputy Chairman Sabir Ali Baloch and Special Assistant Muhammad Zameer Khan one person each.

Ameer Muqam, a former PML-Q legislator who has since switched over to the PML-N, also forwarded a list of his 24 nominees before leaving the coalition party.

When contacted, EOBI spokesman Qamar Hayat denied any wrongdoing in processing of over 400 applications for appointments. But he would neither confirm nor deny that the EOBI chairman had assured PPP cadres that he would make the appointments as a political commitment even if they were annulled by the court the next day.

`We are not violating any Supreme Court order.Everything is being done in accordance with the laid down procedure,` the spokesman said.

EOBI Chairman Zafar Gondal, brother of federal Minister Nazar Gondal of the PPP, was not available for comments.

An insider confided to Dawn that the call letters had been withheld after reports appeared in the press questioning the recruitment process.

Still the news of appointment was conveyed to the chosen ones via SMS texts, perhaps to escape possible court action on `appointment letters`.

During the hearing of the case, the counsel for the EOBI Employees Union had informed the Supreme Court that 132 employees had been recruited in grades 16 to 20 on quotas of the prime minister, federal minister and parliamentarians in violation of law, while 22,000 candidates who had been interviewed had been denied the opportunity.

It is interesting that the government has engaged Advocates Aitzaz Ahsan, Athar Minallah, Sardar Aslam and others who were in the vanguard of the lawyers` movement to fight the petition pending before the Supreme Court regarding the alleged illegal appointments.