Service Tribunal can’t dismiss departmental appeal due to time limit: SC

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court of Pakistan ruled that the Service Tribunal cannot dismiss a departmental appeal as incompetent solely because it was filed after the prescribed time limit.

In its judgment, a five-member bench said that the Service Tribunal is independently vested with the power, under the relevant Service Laws and Rules, to examine whether sufficient cause exists for withholding or condoning the delay, where appropriate.

The bench, headed by Justice Munib Akhtar, and comprising Justice Ayesha A Malik, Justice Aqeel Ahmed Abbasi, Justice Muhammad Shafi Siddiqui, and Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb, considered a legal question: “That where the departmental appeal was barred by time, whether the appeal before the Service Tribunals would automatically warrant dismissal.”

Penalty of dismissal from service can’t be awarded sans probe: SC

The judgment, authored by Justice Ayesha, said that the Service Tribunals must examine, in each case, whether the departmental authority dealt lawfully with the application for condonation, and whether the explanation offered meets the standard of sufficient or reasonable cause.

Only after that inquiry can it decide whether to entertain the appeal on merits. “The orders of the Service Tribunals which summarily dismissed appeals as incompetent solely because the departmental representation was belated or inconsistent with law and cannot stand,” said the judgment.

It noted that the very purpose of an appeal is to challenge the discretion exercised by the departmental authority, whether on preliminary issues such as limitation or on the merits. In this setting, when a departmental authority rejects or ignores a plea for condonation, the Service Tribunal’s appellate role is precisely to scrutinise that exercise of discretion.

To decline jurisdiction on the ground that the departmental appeal was time-barred is, in effect, a violation of the Service Tribunal’s constitutional mandate.

The Service Tribunal is not intended to be a mere rubber stamp of the department’s view, but the first independent judicial forum tasked with safeguarding the rights of civil servants.

An appeal is a statutory right, and its availability cannot be nullified through a mechanical invocation of limitation at the departmental stage without the Service Tribunal undertaking its own assessment of whether sufficient cause was or was not shown. Hence, there appears to be no legal justification for declaring such appeals incompetent before the Service Tribunals.

The Supreme Court’s office was directed to fix all the cases before appropriate benches for determination in accordance with the law.

However, it clarified that, in cases where a similar issue may have arisen and have been decided, and in which review petitions have also been decided, such matters constitute the past and closed transactions and shall remain unaffected by this judgment.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2025