SC says purpose of PSC is to ensure transparency in recruitment process

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court has said the purpose of establishing Public Service Commission (PSC) is to ensure transparency in recruitment process, but if its recommendations are taken in cavalier manner then entire purpose of it would be a futile exercise.

A three-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice Gulzar Ahmed, heard an appeal of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government against the Peshawar High Court (PHC).

The Communication and Works Department of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa through PSC advertised post of draftsman BPS-11 and invited applications from eligible candidates who possessed at least 2nd Division Secondary School Certificate from a recognised Board, as well as, two-year Certificate Course in Civil Draftsmanship from recognised Institute or Board of Technical Education.

The KPK PSC recommended the name of Bacha Alam Khan (respondent), who possessed 3rd Division in Matric but had higher qualification of DAE (Civil) for appointment. The C&W Department did not implement the recommendation of the PSC. Bacha Khan; therefore, filed a writ petition in the PHC, which gave judgment against the KP government. It; therefore, approached the apex court.

Additional AG, KPK argued that the respondent was not qualified and eligible for appointment who had secured 3rd Division in SSC. He said that the lack of 2nd Division in SSC disentitled him for the appointment to the post of draftsman BPS-11, no matter the respondent possessed higher qualification of DAE (Civil). It was further argued that the respondent No1 has no vested right to be appointed merely on the recommendation of the PSC but it is the competent authority which may select and appoint the candidates on merits.

The judgment, authored by Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar, said that the purpose of establishing PSC is to ensure that the recruitment process should be see-through and transparent and only competent persons ought to give way to serve rather than incompetent and unskilful persons.

No doubt the recommendations forwarded do not infer the appointment automatically unless approved by the competent authority but at the same time this cannot be inferred that the recommendations of the PSC should be divested without any justifiable or justiciable reasons.

If the recommendations of the PSC are taken in a cavalier or perfunctory manner, then the entire purpose of constituting the Commission and its infrastructure under the law to regulate recruitment process and undertake burdensome and time-consuming exercise of scrutinizing the applications, conducting tests and interviews then forwarding recommendations to the competent authority, which requisitioned the recruitment process would be a futile and worthless exercise.

The judgment said not only the application and all relevant testimonials of the respondent were scrutinized by the Commission; thereafter, he was allowed to participate in the recruitment process without any objection and ultimately he was declared successful and his name was recommended on the basis of higher qualification and by doing this, neither the Commission has committed any illegality nor exercised any unbridled discretion but recommendations were made compliant with Regulation 19 Clause (f) of KPK Public Service Commission Regulations, 2017, in which, the case of respondent No1 could be recommended on the basis of higher qualification, which is far better than mere matriculation and this aspect has been properly dealt with by learned High Court in Paragraph 5 and 6 of the impugned judgment.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021