Amendment to ASF law: MoD fails to get clearance of Cabinet decision

The Ministry of Defence has reportedly failed to get clearance of a decision of the Cabinet, which would have benefited the Airport Security Force (ASF), despite passage of several years. ASF was established in 1976 under the ASF Act LXXVII of 1975 for ensuring security of all aerodromes, airports, aircraft and civil aviation installations and for the maintenance of law and order therein and for matters connected therewith or ancillary thereto.
At present, the rank structure of ASF officers appearing in different sections of the Act is as follows: -Force Commander- Deputy Director- Assistant Director- Security Officer and Assistant Security Officer. ASF headquarters had submitted a proposal in 2005 regarding re-designation of its present rank structure on the lines followed by other civil armed forces/ law enforcement agencies/ intelligence like ANF, FIA and Coast Guards, etc.
The main plea in support of this proposal was that the present rank structure of ASF does not conform to the ranks of its contemporary civil armed forces. For example, Assistant Security Officers/Security Officers of ASF in BPS-16 & 17 respectively are designated as Assistant Director/ Deputy Director in other agencies like FIA, ANF.
Official documents suggest that this conveys a wrong impression to the general public as they, being not too familiar with ASF rank structure, consider them junior to officers of equivalent grades of other agencies working at the airports. For the same reason, the ASF officers are also at a psychological disadvantage. To rectify this ambiguity, ASF HQ had proposed a rank structure followed by other sister agencies particularly ANF, which involves no financial burden on govt exchequer.
The case was taken up with the Establishment Division which agreed to the re-designation of ASF ranks as follows :- Force Commander (BS-20) as Director General (BS-20), Deputy Director (Col-Coord) (BS-19+Rs 400/pm as special pay) will be Deputy Director General (Coord) (BS-19+Rs 400 pm. as special pay- Deputy Director (BS-19) will be called Director (BS-19), Assistant Director (BS-18); will be called Deputy Director (BS-18), Security Officer (BS-17)- Assistant Director (BS-l7), Assistant Security Officer (BS- 1 6+Rs 150/-PM as special pay ) will be Deputy Assistant Director (BS- 1 6+Rs 150/-PM as Special pay).
To incorporate the re-designated ranks in ASF Act 1975, amendments in the Act were required through an Act of Parliament. Accordingly, a draft bill was got vetted from the Law. Since 'Police Act, 1861 (V of 1861)' was replaced with 'Police Order 2002', a consequential amendment in Section 6(2) of the ASP Act was also vetted by the Law in the same draft bill.
In the light of Rule 27 of the Rules of Business 1973, a summary was submitted to the Federal Cabinet on 4-1-2006 soliciting its approval for introduction of the above draft Bill in the Parliament, which approved the proposal in its meeting held on January 17, 2006. The draft bill was introduced in the National Assembly on February 7, 2006, where after it was referred to the Standing Committee on Defence for consideration and report. The committee considered the Bill on April 28, 2006. However, despite repeated reminders, no further progress of the case was intimated b National Assembly Secretariat up to the year 2008.
The draft bill was again referred to Law Division early this year, which intimated that according to Article 76(3) of the Constitution, a bill pending in the National Assembly shall lapse on the dissolution of the National Assembly. Hence, Airport Security Force (Amendment) Bill 2006 has lapsed and its introduction afresh in the National Assembly requires approval of the Cabinet.