PESHAWAR: A Peshawar High Court bench on Tuesday ordered the reinstatement of 21 sacked contractual teachers of the historical Islamia Collegiate School Peshawar and directed the management to regularise their services in accordance with a previous policy.

In the order, Chief Justice Mazhar Alam Miankhel and Justice Irshad Qaisar declared illegal the termination of the contractual teachers from service by the registrar of the IslamiaCollege University Peshawar, of which the Islamia Collegiate is a constituent school, and ruled that the teachers should be reinstated on regular basis in line with a 2008 policy under which several other employees were regularised in the past.

They issued the order while accepting a petition of Fazle Wahab and 20 other teachers, who were serving as 10th grade teachers in the school. Their services were terminated in April this year.

Mohammad Essa Khan, lawyer for the petitioners, said his clients (BPS-16) had been serving as 10th grade teachers on contractual basis in the school since 2006 and that that from time to time, their contract was extended by the university`s management.

He said last year the petitioners had moved the court for regu-larisation of their services in accordance with the 2008 employees` regularization policy.

He added that despite issuance of a stay order in their favour the university`s management first suspended them and later on terminated their services.

He contended that in past several other contract teachers had been regularized despite the fact that they were having only three years of service, whereas the petitioner had been serving since 2006. He added that the act of the registrar Islamia College University was based on mala fide intentions.

The lawyer for the registrar and Islamia Collegiate School contended that as their contract period expired, the teachers were terminated and that their services were not extended.

He said in future, when thesaid posts would be advertised, the petitioners could apply for them.

COMMENTS SOUGHT: The bench also sought comments from the provincial health secretary in a petition filed by several chemists and druggists against the closure of one of the main eastern entrances of the Lady Reading Hospital Peshawar.

Ghulam Mohiuddin Malik, lawyer for petitioners Fayyaz Ali Shah and others, said according to the master plan of the hospital prepared in 1924, the entrance in question was established and that it was the opening towards Asamai Gate area.

He said the petitioners had set up shops near that entrance long ago.

The lawyer said all of a sudden, the administration had completely closed the easternentrance and had instead opened another entrance somewhere else.

He said due to the closure of the entrance, the petitioners had suffered irreparable loss as patients had not been visiting their drugstores.

Additional advocate general Waqar Ahmad Khan said the government had put up new building of the emergency department following which the eastern entrance was closed.

He said the entrance was closed on the orders of the provincial health secretary.

The bench asked the health secretary to clarify position on the matter.

It also directed the counsel for petitioners to explain during the next hearing as to which rights of the petitioners had been violated due to the closure of the entrance.