PESHAWAR: A Peshawar High Court bench has declared illegal the order of the health department about the revocation of a woman doctor`s appointment as assistant professor to the Khyber Teaching Hospital and asked the hospital`s management to issue her the appointment order within two weeks.

Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth and Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim accepted the petition of assistant registrar Dr Naila Quratulaeen Bukhari against the annulment of her appointment`s order as assistant professor (gynecology) to `accommodate` another doctor, who is wife of a bureaucrat.

The bench ruled that the impugned order of the health secretary issued on May 6, 2015, through which appointment of the petitioner was revoked, and a subsequent notification through which Dr Farzana Nawaz was appointed as assistant professor were illegal.

The petitioner`s lawyer, Khalid Rehman,said his client served on the post of assistant registrar (gynecology) at KTH, one of the major public sector hospitals in the province.

He stated that two assistant professor posts in the KTH gynecology ward were announced, one a permanent and the other a temporary for three years.

The lawyer said his client applied for both the posts and that the relevant selection committee prepared separate merit lists for both the posts.

`In light of merit lists, the KT H Institutional Management Committee recommended senior registrar Dr Zubeda Akhtar for the post of permanent assistant professor and his client for the temporary post following which the health department issued the relevant notifications for their appointment in Feb 2015.

Khalid Rehman said the respondent, Dr Farzana Nawaz, who also served in the same hospital, had applied for the permanent post and not for temporary one.

He said three months after his client`s appointment, the health secretary illegallyrevoked her appointment`s order and appointed Dr Farzana was appointed to the said post.

The lawyer said the KTH was an autonomous institution and that the health secretary was not authorised to revoke an appointment and make new appointment in its place.

He said under the new administrative setup, the KT H IMC had been replaced with a board of governors, while the post of the hospital`s administrator had been abolished before appointment of a medical director as the head of the facility.

The lawyer for Dr Farzana said his client had submitted an application to the health department last year on the basis of which an inquiry was conducted.

He added that in light of that inquiry, the health department had revoked its earlier order and his client was appointed as assistant professor.

The lawyer said the advertisement for the said two posts was vague and application by a candidate was meant for both those posts.