ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Wednesday declared the decisions of Islamabad High Court (IHC) and Lahore High Court (LHC) in higher officers promotion case as null and void.
The verdict was announced by Chief Justice (CJ) Nasir-ul-Mulk heading three-members comprising Justice Gulzar Ahmed and Justice Mushir Alam.
The court has ordered the Central Selection Board (CSB) to form recommendations in 15 days and reconsider the matter of officers' promotion in 30 days without being affected by the reservation of Prime Minister (PM).
The order stated that "both the petitions were converted into appeal and allowed. The impugned judgments of the High Courts are set aside and the Writ Petitions filed by the respondents are dismissed.
The Board shall re-examine the cases of the respondents on the basis of the criteria already set for determining the fitness or otherwise of the civil servants for promotion without, in any way, being influenced by the observations made in the Summary for the return of the recommendations to the Board". Since the promotion of the respondents have been pending for the last so many years, let the Board make its recommendations within a period of 30 days and the competent Authority shall finalize their cases within 15 days of the submissions of the recommendations, the court observed.
According to court order, the contesting respondents in the two Petitions, who had filed Writ Petitions before the Islamabad High Court and the Lahore High Court, are civil servants, serving in BPS-20 in the Pakistan Administrative Service, the Police Service of Pakistan and the Foreign Service of Pakistan.
They were recommended for promotion to BPS-21 along with their colleagues by the Central Selection Board (hereinafter referred to as `the Board'). The Board recommended 45 officers of the Pakistan Administrative Services, 11 of the Police Service of Pakistan and 12 of the Foreign Service of Pakistan on different dates for promotion and separate summaries were prepared for consideration of the Prime Minister. The recommendations of the Board, to the extent of contesting respondents, were returned by the competent Authority for reconsideration.
The order stated that we are not persuaded by the reasoning given by the High Courts in allowing the Writ Petitions of the respondents. The exercise of powers by the Prime Minister was neither arbitrary nor discriminatory.
Some material was before him which dissuaded him from appointing the respondents awaiting further probe by the Board. The Islamabad High Court has interpreted the word "shall" as used in Section 9 of the Civil Servants Act, 1973 and Rule 7 of the Civil Servants (Appointment, promotion and Transfer) Rules, 1973 to grant a mandatory prescription to the recommendations made by the Board to the appointing Authority CPs 44 & 66/15 -18- which can only be returned in cases of glaring mistakes, the court order stated.
According to court order from a plain reading of both the provisions of the law, it becomes clear that the appointing Authority has to make promotions in basic pay scales 20 and 21 only upon the recommendations of the Board. It does not provide in either of the provision that the recommendations of the Board are binding and consequently be returned by the appointing Authority only when the procedure followed by the Board suffers from any factual or legal flaw.
Comments
Comments are closed.