QUETTA, April 10: The health and education secretaries of Balochistan faced the ire of Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Justice Saqib Nisar as he resumed hearing a suo motu case on various issues of public interest on Tuesday.
Three-member bench of the Supreme Court (SC) of Pakistan headed by Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar and comprising Justice Sajjad Ali Shah and Justice Mansoor Ali , conducted a hearing on the suo motu notice taken on Balochistan’s healthcare, education and water crisis at the Quetta registry on Tuesday.
As the hearing went under way, Chief Justice expressed serious displeasure at provincial health secretary Saleh Nasir.
He berated the top health official of the province over the deplorable state of public hospitals as well as the salaries given to young doctors.
Chief Justice Saqib Nisar warned Saleh Nasir of halting his salary until the province’s doctors are paid their dues. He also lamented that the province pays its doctors Rs24,000 a month whereas a driver of the apex court gets paid Rs35,000.
Justice Nisar directed the health secretary to clear the dues of young doctors. “Why haven’t the young doctors been paid yet?” he asked, adding that all the doctors on house jobs should get paid within one week and their valid demands should be met.
Later, appearing before the bench, the education secretary informed the court that half of the schools in the province don’t have water, saying that 11,000 toilets were constructed in the province’s schools in the last three years. The Supreme Court was told that up to a million children in Balochistan are not going to school,
Balochistan Health Secretary Noor-ul-Haq Baloch, while briefing the chief justice on the dire situation of Balochistan’s education system, said, “Up to 11,000 primary schools in the province lack basic facilities and as many as a million children are not getting a school education.”
At this, Justice Nisar remarked that “the situation in Balochistan is even worse than Sindh’s.”
The education secretary informed the court that the government oversees 1,135 primary schools, and admitted on the court’s questioning that these institutes do not have all the required facilities.
During the hearing, the chief justice remarked that the provincial government has failed to provide governance.
The education secretary responded further that a lack of funds restricts improvement in the sector and also blamed the teachers’ union of politicizing everything. -Sabah
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