{"id":3977,"date":"2025-07-03T18:22:15","date_gmt":"2025-07-03T18:22:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/?p=3977"},"modified":"2025-07-03T18:22:15","modified_gmt":"2025-07-03T18:22:15","slug":"court-questions-ihra-hiring-practices-over-missing-service-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/2025\/07\/03\/court-questions-ihra-hiring-practices-over-missing-service-rules\/","title":{"rendered":"Court Questions IHRA Hiring Practices Over Missing Service Rules"},"content":{"rendered":"

ISLAMABAD (Nadeem Tanoli<\/em>)<\/strong>\u00a0The Islamabad High Court has issued notices to federal authorities in response to a constitutional petition filed by a former employee of the Islamabad Healthcare Regulatory Authority<\/a> (IHRA), challenging the legality of its recruitment process. The case, Writ Petition No. 2347 of 2025, was filed by Hamza Akhtar through Advocate Sufyan Haider and was heard by Justice Muhammad Asif on June 17, 2025.<\/p>\n

At the heart of the petition lies the allegation that IHRA carried out multiple recruitment exercises\u2014including one advertised most recently on June 5, 2025\u2014without first framing the mandatory service rules or obtaining approval from the Federal Government as required under Sections 46 and 47 of the Islamabad Healthcare Regulation Act, 2018.<\/p>\n

The petitioner, who previously served IHRA as a legal officer, argued that the absence of a lawful service framework had allowed the Authority to act arbitrarily in both appointments and terminations. He emphasized that such actions violate the fundamental rights of candidates and employees under Articles 4 and 25 of the Constitution.<\/p>\n

The court was informed that an earlier round of recruitment in January 2025 similarly lacked transparency, with no published merit lists or interview scoring criteria. Despite meeting all eligibility requirements, the petitioner was not selected. More alarmingly, 16 employees appointed through that process were later terminated without any formal evaluations or due process, further highlighting the absence of regulatory checks.<\/p>\n

The petition contends that the newly advertised posts significantly altered qualifications and experience criteria from the earlier cycle\u2014without explanation or legal backing\u2014demonstrating a pattern of inconsistency and administrative overreach. The petitioner requested the court to declare the process void ab initio and direct IHRA to first adopt and publish proper recruitment rules.<\/p>\n

The Islamabad High Court<\/strong><\/a> issued notices to the Ministry of National Health Services, the Cabinet Division, the IHRA Board, the Authority\u2019s CEO, and the National Job Portal. Respondents have been ordered to file their responses within 14 days. The next hearing has been scheduled for September 3, 2025.<\/p>\n

The case is gaining attention for raising deeper concerns about governance and meritocracy in autonomous health regulatory bodies. It poses an important question: Can regulatory agencies hire and fire without a binding framework\u2014and still claim transparency?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ISLAMABAD (Nadeem Tanoli)\u00a0The Islamabad High Court has issued notices to federal authorities in response to a constitutional petition filed by a former employee of the Islamabad Healthcare Regulatory Authority (IHRA), challenging the legality of its recruitment process. The case, Writ Petition No. 2347 of 2025, was filed by Hamza Akhtar through Advocate Sufyan Haider and …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":3978,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1442,1445,1441,1436,1439,1437,1444,1440,1438,1443],"class_list":["post-3977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-education","tag-administrativejustice","tag-constitutionalpetitionihra","tag-healthcarereformpakistan","tag-ihrahiringcontroversy","tag-ihrajobs2025","tag-islamabadhighcourt","tag-legalrightspakistan","tag-meritviolation","tag-publicsectorrecruitment","tag-writpetition2347"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3977"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3977\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3979,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3977\/revisions\/3979"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}