KARACHI, Nov 14: The Federal Service Tribunal accepted on Thursday the plea of a civil servant that his seniority should be reckoned from the date he qualified for service and not from the date of his actual induction.
The FST was approached by Niaz Ahmed Shaikh, who appeared in the 1986 CSS Examination and was placed at serial No 340 in the overall seniority list and at No 26 in the quota for rural Sindh. No job was offered to him as only 25 jobs were available for rural Sindh in the various occupational groups.
Three seats were, however, vacated by repeaters who had taken the 1986 exam to improve their position. Instead of offering them to the successful 1986 exam candidates in accordance with a policy decision, the establishment division decided to carry the vacancies over to the next year.
The candidate moved the Sindh High Court, which directed that he should be adjusted against one of the vacancies reserved for the 1986 candidates. The establishment division complied with the court order and offered him a job in the accounts group in 1992. He was assigned to the office of the auditor- general in grade 17 and was promoted to grade 18 in 1997 on completion of the prescribed five-year service.
In 1998, Mr Shaikh made a representation that his seniority in grade 18 should be determined from 1986 as required by the 1973 Civil Servants Act and the rules framed under it. The plea was turned down both by his department and the establishment division, and he moved the FST, through Advocate Mohammed Nawaz Shaikh.
The FST held that the petitioner was entitled to the inter se seniority claimed by him under the policy consistently followed by the establishment division. Since he was appointed on the basis of the 1986 exam result, the Occupational Groups and Services (Probation, Training and Seniority) Rules, 1990, were not applicable to him.
ADJOURNED: A division bench of the Sindh High Court adjourned the hearing of former excise minister Ismail Rahu’s appeal against his conviction by an accountability court for involvement in the fake liquor permits case.
The former minister was tried along with a number of wine merchants for allowing the sale of liquor on fake permits. They were sentenced to seven years’ rigorous imprisonment with a fine of Rs20 million each for causing a loss of Rs66 million to the public exchequer. Challenging their conviction and punishment, the appellants have sought their release on bail.
The bench, which consisted of Justice Wahid Bux Brohi and Justice Rehmat Husain Jaffrey, adjourned the proceedings to Friday after briefly hearing the appellants’ counsel on Thursday.
AIRLINE’S DUES: The Sindh High Court directed the defence ministry on Thursday to decide a private airline’s representation against its allegedly arbitrary and discriminatory closure within 30 days.
The Safe Air International (Pvt) Limited submitted before a division bench, comprising Chief Justice Sayed Sayeed Ashhad and Justice Ghulam Rabbani, that it had been singled out for punitive action by the Civil Aviation Authority for defaulting on payment of its dues.
Alleging default of Rs1.18 million by it, the CAA terminated its licence and sealed its offices in Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar. The action was discriminatory and arbitrary inasmuch as other airlines owed much higher amounts without any adverse action taken against them.
One of the airlines had Rs2.5 billion outstanding against it while another owed a sum of Rs110 million to the CAA. Yet no action had been taken against either of them.
In fact, any defaulting airline which agreed to pay even 10 per cent of the dues claimed by the Authority was allowed to continue plying its business.
The airline also claimed that it made a representation to the CAA, which was summarily rejected. The rejection was challenged before the ministry of defence, but the appeal had not been decided despite the lapse of considerable time. It said it was suffering a big loss every day it remained grounded.
