HYDERABAD  -  The Sindh High Court (SHC) has ordered to stop the Sindh Public Service Commission (SPSC), which has been recruiting the public servants for three decades, from functioning on the basis of illegality of the Commission regarding its act and rules.

The SHC’s Hyderabad Circuit Bench comprising of Justice Zulfiqar Ahmed Khan and Justice Muhmmad Slaeem Jessar issued the detailed 30-page judgment disposing off six identical petitions against the SPSC on Thursday while the hearing was held on May 19. “All tests, interviews, selection, appointments, tenders or any act falling under SPSC Act, 1989 or the rules are suspended forthwith,” reads the judgment. “The individuals i.e the Chairman and the Secretary SPSC suspended by our order dated April 15, 2021, shall remain so,” it added.

The court said the Commission had lost every shred of legitimacy and should be brought to a nullity in its present form. The SHC set aside and cancelled the results and proceedings of the Combined Competitive Exams CCE-2018 and the appointments of 1,783 Medical Officer and women Medical Officers carried out through the advertisement dated July 19, 2018. “In the meantime, all new recruitments strictly on merit be made in the same manner as those prior to the enactment of 1989, Act, as if the said act never existed,” the court ordered, adding that the website of the commission should also be taken off from the web.

The court found SPSC Act, 1989, ultra vires to the Constitution of Pakistan and the 2017 rules of appointment of Chairman and members of SPSC as ultra vires to the Sindh Government Rules of Business, 1986. Likewise, the SPSC rules, 1990, went against the provisions of the 1989 Act. The court advised the provincial government to follow the laws and rules of Australia and New Zealand if it wanted to re-enact the commission’s law or to make new rules. The SHC traced the origin of the Public Service Commission in the Sub-continent to 1919 when the then British Government felt the need to protect the public service from political influences. The Government of India Act was enacted in 1919, and the Commission began to exist from October 1, 1926.

Meanwhile, the bench stated that the ordinances for setting up provincial public service commission in Punjab and KPK were promulgated in 1978 but in Sindh it was not until 1989 when the SPSC Act, 1989, was passed. The judgment delineated at length over the laws and rules which were made and revised from time to time with regard to the federal and provincial commissions.

The bench observed that only in Sindh the Chief Minister appointed the Chairman and members of the SPSC but in the other provinces the power was vested in the governors, adding that the country’s president made these appointments in the Federal Public Service Commission.

The SHC also noted that the terms of offices in Punjab and KPK are 3 years against 5 years in Sindh where 3 years re-employment was also offered and no age restriction was applied over selection of the Chairman and the members.

The court referred to the schedule III under rule 5(ii) to point out that the Sindh government was not competent to appoint chairman and members of the commission.

The judgment also pointed to a supreme court’s judgment which had identified that no formal mechanism for appointing Chairman and members had been framed by the provincial government.  “… in utter disregard of such de facto disability and in absence of any statutory authority, notifications of such appointments have been made over the years,” the bench noted. The court saw a deliberate deviation from following the principle of merit in the SPSC Functions Rules, 1990.

According to the judgment, the 1989 Act stated that the commission shall conduct tests and examinations while the 1990 rules only use the word tests.

“The difference between examination and test is that of a mountain and a rock,” the bench stated.

The bench said the bureaucracy used to function more efficiently under Sindh Civil Servants Act, 1973, and Sindh Civil Servants Rules, 1974

and 1975 and half a dozen other similar laws and rules.

“The province had been served by honest, qualified and motivated civil servants before 1989 when this institution [SPSC] in its present form was born – according to one view to serve as one-window facility to foster whole-sale corruption.”

According to the petitioners Amara Gohar, Asma Makhdoom, Rubina Begum and Naheed Akhtar, SPSC on July 19, 2018, invited applications against 1,783 posts of medical officers and women medical officers. They applied for WMO and sat in the written test on December 9, 2018, but after qualifying the written test they were declared fail in the interview.

As many as 302 MOs and 434 WMOs out of 446 available positions were declared successful for their appointment on January 8, 2019.

The court was informed that on January 10, 2019, the commission again advertised the same posts but the scope of the exam for recruitment was reduced to just interviews.

The petitioners alleged that the candidates who had previously failed to qualify the written test were selected for the jobs after the interviews which reflected political influence and nepotism.

Makhdoom’s counsel advocate Sajjad Ahmed Chandio argued that the commission violated the Supreme Court’s order by not timely displaying result of the written exam.

Advocate Arshad S Pathan, who represented Goharel, said his client secured 557 marks in the written test but was given only 94 marks out of 300 in the viva.

But, he added, some candidates who had obtained 400 or less marks qualified for the interview.

A separate petition concerned recruitment over 269 vacancies of assistant sub inspectors in the police department in alleged violation of the merit.

Another petition challenged transparency in the combined competitive examinations, 2018, conducted by the SPSC.

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