ISLAMABAD, June 19: Over 13,000 petitions of government and corporation employees, who have been suspended, dismissed, transferred or compulsorily retired, are pending with the Federal Services Tribunal (FST) for more than a year.

The number of pending petitions can increase as the FST is short of strength. The present chairman was appointed after two months of his predecessor’s retirement.

According to the FST, Act of 1973, “there shall be 10 members and one chairman” for its principal seat and two registries in Karachi and Lahore.

The Islamabad seat also deals with cases of Peshawar, while the registry in Karachi is shifted (when required) to Quetta to entertain the petitioners from Balochistan.

This strength was fixed at a time when the FST was only supposed to deal with petitions of government-run bodies. It was not enhanced even after the enactment of the FST amendment act of 1994 when it was empowered to entertain petitions of the aggrieved corporation employees.

The president of the Services Bar Association of Pakistan, Advocate Abdul Rehman Siddiqui, said the backlog had increased manifold eversince the FST was empowered to entertain petitions of the employees of corporations.

He said the present strength of the FST was insufficient to deal with the growing number of petitions. He complained that one person had to do several duties which delayed the filing of appeals and formal passing of orders which added to the problems of the litigants and lawyers.

He informed that the Services Bar Association had been demanding of the higher government functionaries to increase the strength of the FST. He said atleast 20 more members were needed in the tribunal.

Registrar FST Gul Mohammad confirmed that the number of pending cases had crossed 13,000. However, the latest figures were being worked out.

About the strength of the FST, he said “we are hearing that the government is considering to make more appointments” which would enable the FST to deal with litigations as soon as possible.