Islamabad - The Islamabad High Court (IHC) Friday rejected the federal government’s application seeking immediate suspension of its earlier verdict in which the court had declared the recent promotions of some 400 high-level bureaucrats as null and void.
A single bench of IHC comprising Justice Aamer Farooq conducted the hearing of the government’s application and granted time to the plaintiffs to submit their reply in this regard and deferred the proceedings till August 11.
Additional Attorney General Aafnan Karim Kundi has filed the application before the court and adopted that the court had rejected Central Selection Board’s 15 number formula to determine promotions and termed it as against the verdict of Supreme Court of Pakistan. He added that in the verdict, the IHC single bench had further directed the establishment division to chalk out a new formula for promotions of the bureaucrats within one month and again send the matter of promotions of civil servants to CSB.
The AAG contended in the ICA that all this is not possible in the time frame fixed by the court. He added that they had prepared an intra-court appeal (ICA) against this verdict but they were waiting for the written judgment to file the ICA.
He added that contempt of court proceedings would be started against the government if it failed to implement this decision within one month. Therefore, he requested the court to suspend the IHC bench’s decision till the filing of ICA in this matter.
The plaintiff’s counsel Barrister Masroor Shah argued if the federation has nothing to hide then why it should fear going to the Supreme Court of Pakistan. Then, he requested the bench to grant time to the plaintiffs to file a reply against federation’s application.
The IHC single bench accepted his plea and granted till August 11 to file their reply in this matter.
Former Inspector General (IG) Islamabad Aftab Cheema, Deputy Commandant Frontier Corps (FC) Ghani-ur-Rehman, former capital city police officer (CCPO) Peshawar Syed Imtiaz Altaf were among 50 officials who had challenged the recent promotions.
The petitioners in this matter had claimed in their petitions that only officials belonging to Punjab were promoted on recommendations of the central selection board. They added that the step has been taken to seek favours in the next general elections.
After hearing the arguments, the IHC single bench annulled the recent promotions and directed the establishment division to formulate a new formula in this connection within one month.
The court further directed that the performance of the civil servants should be comprehensively reviewed while giving them promotions.
The bench also noted that the promotions given to the officials on the basis of their seniority would be remained intact.
In this matter, the court had clubbed all these identical petitions filed by the superseded officers from Pakistan Administrative Service (PAS), Police Service of Pakistan (PSP), Pakistan Custom Services (PCS), Inland Revenue Service (IRS), Secretariat Group, Engineering Service of Pakistan Railways and Medical Group of Pakistan and Railways. In their petitions, they had contended that they were deprived of promotions from BPS-20 to 21.
The petitioners have maintained in their petitions that government had promoted their juniors while ignoring them.