' Through this consolidated judgment I propose to decide Writ Petition No,3131 of 1994, Writ Petition No,3300 of 1994, Writ Petition No,4307 of 1994 and Writ Petition No,8771 of 1997 together as common questions of law fact are involved in all these petitions. The petitioners in all these writ petitions are employees of the Boards of Intermediate and Secondary Edueatioh; Multan and Dera Ghazi Khan and through these Constitutional petitions they have sought issuance of a direction to the Government of the Punjab regarding payment of the Secretariat Allowance to the petitioners alongwith their salaries.
2. The background of the relief prayed for in the present writ petitions is that through its Letter No,FD.PC-2/88 dated 8-8-1988 the Punjab Finance Department had provided for payment of an allowance called the Secretariat Allowance at the rate of 20% of the basic pay to all employees in the Punjab Government Secretariat, Governor's Secretariat, Chief Minister's Secretariat and Punjab Provincial Assembly, Secretariat. Thereafter, many other employees belonging to various Government Departments in the Province of the Punjab had filed various writ petitions before this Court claiming that they should also be paid the Secretariat Allowance by the Government because extension of the said benefit to only the employees of the above mentioned Secretariats was discriminatory. Some of such writ petitions had been accepted and the said benefit was, resultantly, extended to employees of various other Departments of the Government and other statutory bodies controlled by the Government. Faced with that additional financial load and also to cater for the fact that the Secretriat Allowance was no longer restricted to the abovementioned Secretariats alone and, thus, its nomenclature needed to be modified the Government of the Punjab, Finance Department issued Memorandum No,FD-PC--2-2/94 on 18-7-1994 on the subject of "Revision of pay scales and frings benefits of civil employees (BS-1-22) of Punjab Government (1994)." Apart from providing for many other things the said Memorandum contained the following entry at serial No,5: "(5) ALLOWANCES:
(i) Secretariat Allowance.--With the introduction of new scales of Pay, the Secretariat Allowance is abolished w,e,f, 1-6-1994 and the amount actually drawn on 31-5-1994 will be converted into Personal Allowance. Such Personal Allowance in case of Government Employees in BS-17 to BS-22 shall be reduced by the amount of annual increments, by which the Government Employee's pay may be increased after 1-6-1994 and shall cease as soon as his pay is increased by an amount equal to/or more than his Personal Allowance. Those in BS-1 to BS-16 will be exempted from this adjustment to the extent that their Personal Allowance will not be reduced/adjusted."
3. Incidentally the Federal Government had also allowed Secretariat Allowance to some of its employees but subsequently through a Memorandum issued by the Finance Department on 15-6- 1994 the said Secretariat Allowance was withdrawn by the Federal Government for certain class of its employees which action had been challenged by one of the employees before the Hon'ble Supreme Court of Pakistan through a Constitutional petition. That Constitutional petition was dismissed by the Hon'ble Supreme Court of Pakistan on 11-4-1997 and the judgment in that case is reported as Muhammad Shabbir Ahmed Nasir v. Secretary, Finance Division, Islamabad and another (1997 SCM R 1026). It was held by the Hon'ble Supreme Court of Pakistan in the said judgment that no protection under section 1.7 of the Civil Servants Act, 1973 is available in respect of allowances paid to a Government servant and withdrawal of such allowances by the Government cannot be challenged on any legal plane.
4. On 10-12-1997 the Governor of the Punjab promulgated the Punjab Secretariat Allowance (Withdrawal) Ordinance, 1997, Punjab Ordinance No,XXXIV of 1997 section 2(1) whereof provided as follows:- "2. Withdrawal of the Secretariat Allowance.--(1) Government of the Punjab Finance Department's Letter No, FD-PC-2-1/88, dated 8-8-1988 (hereinafter referred to as the 'said letter') which provided for the payment of an allowance called Secretariat Allowance at the rate of 20% of the basic pay to all employees in the Punjab, Government Secretariat, Governor's Secretariat, Chief Minister's Secretariat and Punjab Provincial Assembly Secretariat being discriminatory shall be deemed never to have been issued."
5. On the basis of the abovementioned judgment rendered by the Hon'ble Supreme Court of Pakistan as well as the Punjab Ordinance No,XXXIV of 1997 it ought to have become clear to all concerned that the Secretariat Allowance had stood withdrawn and no controversy could have been created on the said issue but that was not to be. According to Mr. Muhammad Khalid Alvi, Advocate, the learned counsel for the petitioners in three of the present writ petitions, the Memorandum issued by the Finance Department of the Government of the Punjab on 18-7-1994 had "abolished" the Secretariat Allowance w,e,f, 1-6-1994 and the said allowance was thereafter payable to the concerned employees as Personal Allowance according to the formula detailed at Serial No,5 of the said Memorandum. He has, thus, contended that Punjab Ordinance No,XXXIV of 1997 had withdrawn the Secretariat Allowance but the same had not done away with the Personal Allowance made payable under the abovementioned Memorandum of 18-7-1994. As against that the learned Assistant Advocate-General appearing for the Provincial Government as well as the learned counsel appearing for the relevant Boards of Intermediate and Secondary Education have seriously contested the said contention of the learned counsel for the petitioners.
6. I must observe that the abovementioned argument advanced by Mr. Muhammad Khalid Alvi, Advocate appears to be quite attractive at its surface but unfortunately the same cannot withstand a deeper scrutiny of the matter. It may be true that the Memorandum dated 18-7-1994 issued by the Government of the Punjab, Finance Department talked about abolishing of the Secretariat Allowance w,e,f, 1-6-1994 and conversion of the said Allowance into Personal Allowance but it has appeared clear to me that in fact the said Memorandum had not brought about abolishing of the Secretariat Allowance and all that was one by the said Memorandum was to give the said Allowance a different name so as to cater for its expanded application beyond the Secretariats originally catered for through the above-mentioned letter, dated 8-8-1988 and also to chalk out a scheme to phase the same out gradually to the extent of some classes of Government employees. Had the Secretariat Allowance been totally done away with through the said Memorandum in the year 1994 then there would have been no necessity to promulgate the above mentioned Punjab Ordinance No,XXXIV of 1997 seeking withdrawal of the said Allowance. It is, thus, evident .That the Secretariat Allowance introduced by the Government of the Punjab in the year 1988 for the benefit of employees of certain specified Secretariats alone, which was subsequently extended to various other Departments through judicial intervention, had only been redesignated with a different name, i,e, Personal Allowance through the abovementioned Memorandum in the year 1994 and has subsequently finally been withdrawn through the afore-referred Ordinance No,XXXIV of 1997. To my mind this could be the only rational explanation in this regard because otherwise after the claimed abolishing of the Secretariat Allowance in the year 1994 there would hardly have been any occasion for promulgation of an Ordinance to achieve the same result in the year 1997. Be that as it may the fact remains that the Secretariat Allowance, despite its redesignation in 1994 as the Personal Allowance, stands finally withdrawn by the abovementioned Punjab Ordinance No,XXXIV of 1997.
7. It has also been noticed that the contents of the Punjab Ordinance No,XXXIV of 1997 apparently only provided for withdrawal of the letter, dated 8-8-1988 which had introduced the Secretariat Allowance for certain specified Secretariats but the description of that Ordinance and its other details made it abundantly clear that it had intended to withdraw the Secretariat Allowance in its generality. In this context it cannot be lost sight of that extension of benefit of the said Allowance to employees of other Departments through judicial intervention was founded on the .Abovementioned letter, dated 8-8-1988 and the benefit of the Secretariat Allowance was extended to employees of other Departments only on the ground of discrimination vis-a-vis the limited scope of the abovementioned letter, dated 8-8-1988. Thus, withdrawal of the said letter, dated 8-8- 1988 through the Punjab Ordinance No,XXXIV 1997 had practically pulled the rug from under the said judicial pronouncements and had removed the root-cause of extension of the benefit of the Secretariat Allowance to the other Departments. In this view of the matter for the purpose of withdrawing the Secretariat Allowance vis-a-vis the employees of the Departments there was no need to make a specific mention of the same in the abovementioned Ordinance No, XXXIV of 1997 if the very source, i,e. The letter dated 8-8-1988 was itself being plugged by the said Ordinance. Thus, through tapping the fountainhead itself drying up the channels flowing therefrom was automatically achieved without much further ado.
8. It has already been mentioned above that the Hon'ble Supreme Court of Pakistan had held in the case of Muhammad Shabbir Ahmed Nasir (supra) that withdrawal of an Allowance by a Government cannot be challenged by an employee of such a Government on any legal plane.
Thus, this Court is not in any position to allow these petitions and to direct the Provincial Government to keep on extending the benefit of the Secretariat Allowance to the petitioners. This result may appear to the petitioners to be oppressive and the petitioners may be hit hard by the same financially in these trying times but the hands of this Court are tied in this respect and apart from extending sympathy to the petitioners this Court is in no position to lend them a helping hand in this regard.
9. For what has been discussed above all these petitions are hereby dismissed with no order as to costs.