' MUHAMMAD ILYAS, J.--Four writ petitions were disposed of by Ihsan-ul-Haq Chaudhary, J., of the Lahore High Court, by means of a single judgment. In this petition, leave has been sought to appeal against the said judgment.
2. A common question involved in the said Constitutional petition was whether a railway employee, who has remained under suspension, when reinstated, is entitled to full salary for the period of suspension or to the salary for the said period minus the amount of subsistence allowance, received by him during the period of suspension.
3. In the judgment-under challenge, it has been held that the aforesaid employee will be entitled to full salary without making any deduction therefrom on account of the payment of subsistence allowance to him during the period of suspension. This view has, however, been assailed by the petitioner, namely, the Divisional Superintendent, Pakistan Railways, Lahore.
4. It was submitted by learned counsel for the petitioner that an authoritative pronouncement of this Court is needed on the above question because another Single Judge of the Lahore High Court, M. Javed Butter, has taken a view contrary to the one expressed by Ihsan-ul-Haq Chaudhary, J., while deciding Writ Petition No,4506 of 1982, by means of judgment, dated 29th November, 1995 (copy at page 35 of the Paper Book) by placing reliance on Pakistan Railways v. Aftab Ahmad and others 1988 PLC 960, decided by the High Court of Sindh.
5. In Abdul Khaliq Bangash v. The Secretary, Government of West Pakistan, Cooperative Department, Lahore and 2 others 1970 SCMR 103, a learned Bench of this Court, comprising Hamoodur Rahman, C.J. And Sajjad Ahmad, J., observed that if the suspension of a civil servant is "not in order, at the most, he can make a claim for the balance of his unpaid salary" for the period of such suspension. In view of the word 'balance' used in the said observation, one may argue that the said learned Bench meant to convey that a civil servant who has remained under suspension shall be entitled to salary for the period of suspension minus the subsistence allowance paid to him during that period. It is, however, noteworthy that in the case of Abdul Khaliq Bangash, the controversy like the one involved in the present case was not clearly raised with reference to the rules referred to in the impugned judgment.
6. Besides, there is the case of Government of N.-W.F.P. v. I.A. Sherwani and another PLD 1994 SC 72 in which, while dealing with rule 53 of Fundamental Rules, it was ruled by the Shariat Appellate Bench of the Supreme Court that according to the Injunctions of Islam "a suspended Government servant should be allowed full amount of his salary and all other benefits and facilities provided to him under the contract of service".
7. In view of what has gone above, we allow leave to the petitioner to appeal against the judgment impugned herein so that the effect of payment of subsistence allowance to civil servants involved in the writ petitions indicated at the outset, as well as the impact of the aforesaid opinion of the learned Shariat Appellate Bench on a case like the one in hand is determined by means of an A authoritative pronouncement.
8. Since the points involved in this case are of general importance, the office may fix the appeal at an early date after obtaining kind orders of the Humble Chief Justice, who may, perhaps, in view of the aforesaid judgment in Abdul Khaliq Bangash's case, like to constitute a Full Bench to hear and decide the appeal.