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Eng. Saeed Ahmed and others V. Chairman National Highway authority, Islamabad and others ,

PLC (C.S) 2019 1475 · Balochistan High Court

This case involved three employees of the National Highway Authority (NHA) who had originally been hired on contract in 1996 and were later terminated. Under the Sacked Employees (Re-instatement) Act, 2010 (SERA), NHA reinstated them in 2011 into regular positions one grade higher than before, treating them under section 4(a) of the law, which applies to regularly appointed staff.

However, in a separate case, the Sindh High Court had ruled that contract employees like these petitioners should actually be dealt with under section 4(b) of SERA, not 4(a), since they were originally hired on contract, not on a regular basis. Following that ruling, NHA issued a fresh order in 2013 demoting the petitioners back down one grade. The employees challenged this demotion before the Balochistan High Court, arguing it was unfair, done without hearing them, and went beyond what the Sindh High Court had actually ordered.

The Balochistan High Court held that it could not use its constitutional writ jurisdiction to overturn or sit in judgment over an order passed by another High Court (the Sindh High Court) acting in its judicial capacity. One High Court cannot issue a writ against another High Court's judicial order. Because NHA's demotion order was simply implementing the Sindh High Court's binding decision, the Balochistan High Court found it had no power to interfere, highlighting an important limit on the scope of High Courts' authority over each other's judgments.

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