KARACHI, April 4: The Federal Service Tribunal on Monday expunged adverse remarks against an income tax officer in his annual confidential reports (ACRs) and ordered his promotion with retrospective effect so as to restore his seniority.

Petitioner Hakim Ali Soomro submitted, through his counsel, Mohammed Nawaz Shaikh, that he joined the income tax department as stenographer in 1969 and became an ITO in 1994 after clearing several departmental examinations and earning promotions from grade 14 to grade 17. Adverse entries were, however, made in his ACRs for 1999 and 2000 by the southern region IT commissioner, Karachi.

On the basis of the ACRs, he was declared unfit for promotion in the year 2001. He made departmental representations to the chairman of the Central Board of Revenue, which were rejected. Hence his petition in the FST.

Advocate Nawaz Shaikh submitted before an FST bench, comprising tribunal chairman Justice Amanullah Abbasi and member Akbar M. Memon, that the petitioner had an unblemished record of satisfactory service before 1999. He passed departmental examinations to qualify for promotion. Adverse remarks in his confidential report were made for the first time in 1999 and repeated the following year. He was neither administered a warning nor cautioned nor even put on notice prior to the adverse entries. He was denied promotion in 2001 on the basis of the preceding ACRs. However, according to his ACR for 2001, he was first deemed “fit for promotion” by the counter-signing authority and was declared unfit only subsequently.