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Punjab Assembly secretary sent on forced leave
PML-N sources say the measure was taken due to Bhatti’s affiliation with Pervaiz Elahi. — APP LAHORE: Punjab Assembly speaker Rana Mohammad Iqbal has sent assembly secretary Mohammad Khan Bhatti on three months forced leave for ‘inefficient’ working. However, sources in the Pakistan Muslim League-N say the action was ‘necessitated’ due to political affiliations and close coordination of Bhatti with former chief minister Pervaiz Elahi. ‘Mr Bhatti had been warned to discontinue his daily meetings with the Chaudhrys. But he declined, saying he had so deep relationship with them that he was ready even to forgo his post for them,’ a source quoted him as telling the authorities. The authorities, the source said, apprehended that Bhatti daily passed to the Chaudhrys the confidential information he would gather by virtue of his official position and the PML-N top brass had been stressing the speaker to remove him. The speaker, who was resisting the pressure for a couple of months, lost his patience on receiving reports that Bhatti had joined Pervaiz Elahi in his recent press conference in Islamabad. Mr Bhatti had been appointed as assembly secretary by outgoing speaker Afzal Sahi before the PML-N took reigns of Punjab in April 2008. The speaker is authorised to send any officer of his secretariat on forced leave for three months and the `punishment’ is extendable. Mr Bhatti was a grade-7 clerk in the agriculture department when the then Punjab Assembly speaker Pervaiz Elahi inducted him into the Assembly Secretariat in grade-11 in 1997. Thanks to the patronage of Mr Elahi, who became the Punjab chief minister in 2002, he attained grade-20 in less than a decade, an unprecedented rise seen by any bureaucrat, and was appointed special secretary in the Chief Minister’s Secretariat, a post especially created to accommodate him. Mr Bhatti was posted as the assembly secretary on March 7, 2008. He, however, proceeded on long leave fearing the new government could act against him by investigating into ‘political-based’ and ‘out of turn’ promotions given to him by the previous authorities. Special secretary Aftab Joiya was made acting secretary only to be shortly replaced by another special secretary, and the most senior officer in the assembly secretariat, Malik Maqsood Ahmed. As the latter was made permanent secretary, Mr Bhatti, reportedly on the direction of the Chaudhrys, cancelled his long leave and moved the Lahore High Court claiming Malik’s appointment illegal as he (Bhatti) was the assembly secretary (though on leave at that time). The speaker office took the plea before the court that Bhatti knew nothing about legislative work and could not draft even a couple of lines of any legislation so he could not be considered for the all important posts that basically dealt with legislation. Bhatti moved the Supreme Court and the then chief justice Abdul Hameed Dogar accepted his plea and reinstated him as secretary. Cancelling his leave, he took charge of his office in March this year when the PML-N was struggling to get reinstated its government, removed by a Supreme Court decision disqualifying Shahbaz Sharif to hold any public office. Efforts to remove Mr Bhatti were started soon after the apex court reinstated the Shahbaz government on March 31. An influential PML-N group is supporting posting of Malik Maqsood to the slot, while his appeal is also lying pending with the apex court for review of its earlier verdict on Bhatti case. On the other hand, speaker Rana Iqbal has already formed a special committee, headed by deputy speaker Rana Mashhood, with law minister Rana Sanaullah Khan, MPAs Rana Afzal and Chaudhry Shafiq as its members to review all the appointments and undue or out-of-turn promotions given to the assembly staff since 2002. — Amjad Mahmood DAWN: Monday, 08 Jun, 2009 |
