The Punjab Services Tribunal (PST) Thursday reserved the verdict on disputed proportion ratio fixed in the Provincial Management Service (PMS) Rules 2004.

There is a long standing conflict between the two factions of the provincial service officers, the provincial civil service (PCS) executive and the provincial secretariat service (PSS). The PCS claim 7:3 ratio while the latter, the PSS, say that their share in the promotion must be 6:4.

Both of the parties approached the Punjab chief secretary who constituted a committee comprising of senior secretaries. The committee were divided as two officers secretary law and secretary regulation (S&GAD) were of the view that the ratio of 6:4 was correct while two including secretary services and the Social Welfare opined that since the ratio issue was settled under an agreement between the two groups, the PCS and the PSS, so the ratio of 7:3 was right. Moreover, the matter was time barred, they added.

The Supreme Court had remanded the case to the PST on December 15, 2014. The PST heard the case continuously for over three years, three months and after 33 hearings concluded the case. On April 5, 2018, the service matters court reserved the judgment which is expected to be announced within a day or so.

The Punjab Services Tribunal (PST) had in May 2014 allowed a petition filed by former Provincial Secretariat Service (ex-PSS) officers, a faction of provincial service officers, against former Punjab chief secretary Nasir Mehmood Khosa’s decision on disputed promotion share.

The ex-PSS officers had appealed to the service tribunal to set aside the decision of the then chief secretary Khosa, revising the unfair ratio for promotions to next grades and allowing the promotions on proportionate basis in accordance with the cadre strength.

The PST, in its short verbal order, after completing a one-year-long hearing, had allowed the appeal and ordered the provincial administration head, the chief secretary, to send the recommendations to the chief minister, the competent authority. 

In its detailed order, the PST wrote, “It is well established by now that the provision of any act or rule can be challenged any time by an aggrieved person. No period of limitation is prescribed by Limitation Act 1908.” The court further said the appellants, in their representation before the Punjab chief secretary, had pleaded that the rules fixing the ratio of 7:3 for promotions were arbitrary, discriminatory and against the rules of natural justice.”

The objection of the respondents that departmental representation of the appellants was barred by time is rejected, the tribunal wrote. The PST set aside the order the CS had passed on March 28. It said the impugned ratio of 7:3 in PMS Rules 2004 may be revised in accordance with the policy instructions contained in S&GAD’s letter SOR-II 2-54/76 dated September 25, 1980, which works out to be 51:49 for ex-PCS and ex-PSS cadres, respectively. 

The tribunal ordered the CS to send the report of the committee along with his own recommendations to the CM within 30 days in the light of the observations and principles laid down by the superior courts. 

Former CS Khosa had rejected the ex-PSS officers’ request for reviewing the promotion ratio according to their cadre strength. It merits mentioning here that on March 28, a couple of days before his transfer to Islamabad as federal finance secretary, Khosa had retained the previous ratio. Instead of sending recommendations to the CM, he had issued the order on its own that the secretariat service officers’ thought was a violation of the prescribed rules. 

They said that his decision had created ire among the ex-PSS officers who considered it was biased, so they decided to knock at the tribunal’s door to get relief. The ex-PSS officers had pleaded to the PST to revise the existing ratio of 7 and 3 and had sought relief on the grounds that the ratio ought to be set on the basis of cadre strength that they thought should be 51 and 49.