PESHAWAR: Peshawar High Court has temporarily suspended an advertisement of Peshawar Electric Supply Company (Pesco) for recruitment against posts of commercial assistants and line superintendents.

A bench consisting of Justice Ijaz Anwar and Justice Fazal Subhanissued notices to secretary of ministry of energy (power division) and Pesco director general (human resource) seeking their comments within a fortnight to a petition, challenging the fresh recruitment process instead ofresuming the earlier one that was almost completed but frozen in 2022.

The petition is jointly filed by 26 of the candidates including Waqar Khan and others, who claimed that the posts of commercial assistants (BPS-15) and line superintendents (LSII) (BPS-14) were earlier advertised and processed, and they were put on merit list after appearing in the selection process.

They stated that federal government had placed a ban on fresh recruitment allegedly due to financial constraints, but now without lawful justification the earlier process had been scrapped and the posts readvertised.

The petitioners requested the court to set aside the impugned decision of cancelling the previous selection process for the said posts and issuance of advertisement for freshselection process of such posts and declare the same illegal.

They sought directives of the court for respondents to resume the selection process started under the previous advertisement in 2022 thereby considering the petitioners for appointment against the said posts.

Advocate Khalid Rahman appeared for the petitioners and said that the petitioners had applied against posts of commercial assistants and LS-II pursuant to an advertisement under a recruitment drive including approximately 272 vacancies of commercial assistants and 135 of LS-II.

He stated that after they were declared eligible for the posts, they had appeared in the written examination conducted by University of Engineering and Technology, where after the office of Pesco chief executive officer had circulated provisional lists of the successfulcandidates including the petitioners.

He said that on May 28, 2022, the government abruptly froze the recruitment process for all distribution companies (Discos), citing financial constraints.

Mr Rahman stated that subsequently through a letter on Sept 23, 2022, the respondents partially unfroze the recruitment process but only for BPS17 posts, while postponing the process for other posts including that of commercial assistant and LS-H with the assurance that separate instructions would be issued later on.

He said that now instead of resuming the earlier recruitment process, the respondents had issued the impugned advertisement to start fresh recruitment process for filling the said categories of posts.

The counsel contended that impugned decision of therespondents to scrap the earlier process was discriminatory, arbitrary and in violation of fundamental rights of the petitioners enshrined in articles 4, 18 and 25 of the Constitution of Pakistan.

He argued that once a recruitment process had substantially progressed and candidates had participated in the written test, the petitioners acquired a vested right under the doctrine of legitimate expectancy that the process should be concluded on merit.

The respondents in the petition are federal government through secretary of ministry of energy (power division), deputy secretary (Discos) ministry of energy (power division), Wapda through its chairman, Pesco through its chief executive officer and Pesco director general (human resource).