ATIQ AHMAD, SUPERINTENDENT ANTI-TERRORISM COURT NO.1, GILGIT-BALTISTAN vs PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT through Chief

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ATIQ AHMAD, SUPERINTENDENT ANTI-TERRORISM COURT NO.1, GILGIT-BALTISTAN VS PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT through Chief Secretary GB, Gilgit arts.4 & 25---Government of Gilgit-Baltistan Order, 2018, art.86(2)---Notification No. CC-E/2020 dated 11th June, 2020---Post, upgrading/re-designation of---Rule of law---Equality of citizens---Discrimination---Writ jurisdiction of the Chief Court was invoked by officials working on the post of Superintendent (BPS-17) in anti-Terrorism Court and Custom and Banking Court of Gilgit-Baltistan---Record revealed that the (same) post of Superintendent in District Judiciary had been re-designated/upgraded as Staff Officer (BPS-18) w.e.f 1st June 2020, but the petitioners had not been upgraded to bring them at par with the similar placed persons---Qualification and nature of duty for the post of Superintendent in the Courts where the petitioners were working and Lower Judiciary of Gilgit Baltistan was same---article 25 of the Constitution, having been included in the Government of Gilgit-Baltistan Order, 2018, required that persons similarly placed had to be treated similarly except on the basis of reasonable classification---Qualification and nature of duties of both posts being the same , the petitioners could not be treated differently---Petitioners, in light of arts. 4 & 25 of the Constitution, had the inalienable right to be treated in accordance with law and were entitled to equal protection of law---Equality before law was subject to reasonable classification but in the present case there was no question of any classification---Post of the Superintendent in BPS-17 in subordinate Judiciary of Gilgit-Baltistan had been re-designated as Court Officers and the same was upgraded from BPS-17 to BPS-18 w.e.f 1st June 2020 by the Gilgit-Baltistan Chief Court vide Notification No. CC-E/2020 dated 11th June 2020, hence the post held by the petitioners also needed to be re-designated/upgraded as per analogy of "equal treatment among the equals"---Petitioners being similarly placed in terms of their natures of job i.e. same type of work, service grade and qualification had clearly been discriminated in treatment by the respondents' vis-à-vis their counterparts in the Lower Judiciary of Gilgit Baltistan---Chief Court directed the respondents to remove the cause of such discrimination by notifying the up-gradation of petitioner's cadre for equal treatment bringing them at par with their counterparts working in the subordinate judiciary of Gilgit Baltistan---Writ petition was allowed, in circumstances.

ATIQ AHMAD, SUPERINTENDENT ANTI-TERRORISM COURT NO.1, GILGIT-BALTISTAN vs PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT through Chief Secretary GB, Gilgit arts — 2024 PLC(CS) 441 Gilgit-Baltistan Chief Court

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