Dismissal of SECP official suspended | Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF)

Pakistan Press Foundation

Dismissal of SECP official suspended

RAWALPINDI, Aug 11: The Lahore High Court has suspended the dismissal of a Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) official.

Justice Chaudhry Mohammad Tariq while admitting the appeal of Sohail Najeeb, a joint director at the information system technology department (ISTD) of the commission, for regular hearing issued notices to the secretary ministry of finance and the SECP chairman.

Mr Najeeb has cited the two officials along with chairman policy board, commissioner legal, executive directors ISTD and human resource department of the SECP as respondents in his appeal against the June 10, 2010, termination order.

Through his lawyer Abdur Rehman Siddiqui, the appellant maintained that he had been victimised on the directive of the ISTD executive director after he informed the SECP chairman about alleged illegal transaction of IBM software renewal for e-services (web portal for company registration at SECP) worth approximately Rs11 million without following the procurement process.

He said he had also appealed to the secretary ministry of finance against his termination without any show-cause notice over two months back but did not receive any reply.

He alleged that after he reported the irregularity to the high authorities, the ISTD chief got his services terminated on the basis of an anonymous e-mail which circulated in the SECP offices discussing the character of certain officials of the information department.

Challenging the legality of his termination, he said the SECP had cited certain rules from the HR handbook 2007 that had not been notified in the official gazette.

The official said there were other transactions in violation of relevant rules and regulations. He cited two of the transactions – EMC SAN (storage area network) procurement worth approximately Rs90 million and AWACS (purchase from India) worth approximately Rs30 million.

He prayed the court to annual his termination order as he was being victimised for raising voice against financial irregularities in the commission.
Source: Dawn
Date:8/12/2010