THIS is a case of 54 Grade-17 officers of the Sindh government who have continued to hold their offices since 2005 despite admissions made to the administration, as well as to the Sindh High Court, that their appointments were engineered for political considerations. The Sindh government has, instead of taking action, been protecting their service prospects.

Still , the aggrieved candidates, having exhausted all administrative remedies, approached the Sindh High Court in 2006 and again in 2008 for claiming their right to be considered on standards of merit, instead of political considerations.

Subsequently, three inquiries were conducted by committees comprising seniormost members of the SPSC and Anti-Corruption Establishment, which commonly concluding that a majority of officers under question were appointed as a result of forged enhancing of scores in their answer books by SPSC authorities and granting exorbitant marks in oral part, in disregard of merit.

Answer books of many such candidates were even removed from record of the Commission. The SPSC’s inquiry reports, which are public record now, have also announced fresh results of actual qualifying candidates, which have gone unheeded by the Sindh government.

To add to the agony of deserving candidates (who unfortunately happen to be apolitical), the Sindh High Court has abandoned the case for the last eight years, while the Sindh government has found all excuses for inaction on the pretext that the case is sub judice. Courts have never taken exception to such illegality as has witnessed the instant case.

The Supreme Court recently terminated such illegal appointments of about 3,000 EOBI employees, reverted to actual ranks the officers appointed on OPS (own pay and scale above their grade), withdrew illegal shoulder promotions etc, whereas all high courts have at innumerable times done away with illegal practices in appointments and upheld the rights of deserving and competent candidates.

The numbing questions, that deserving candidates look for answers to, are:

a. Whether any court has barred the Sindh Chief Secretary from exercising his lawful authority for redress in the interests of justice.

b. Whether there is a lack of ample evidence beyond iota of doubt to proceed against this case of illegal appointments.

c. Whether there exists any principle of law that allows in the name of ‘past and closed transaction’ certain actions pregnant with mala fide and founded on illegality and nepotism.

d. Whether the actual deserving candidates (many jobless now) are left with any other forum except the administration and court of law for seeking justice. Whether they do not have any other options for remedial recourse except waiting for yet another decade of injustice.

e. Whether the illegal appointees are so politically influential that none amongst successive governments in Sindh has been able to dare take action against them.

There is still a way forward. Either a commission of retired judges of higher judiciary be constituted for re-scrutinising the entire case on the basis of facts and inquiries and submit report to the court for decision; or a bench be formed to hear the case on a daily basis to conclude it at the earliest.

It is time the judiciary and executive authorities in Sindh resolved the controversy attached to the state of governance as stigma and formed an independent commission which might work on merit alone.

Abid Mohammad

New York

Published in Dawn, July 11th, 2014