ISLAMABAD: An ‘influential’ additional secretary at the Prime Minister’s Secretariat found himself in hot waters on Wednesday when the Islamabad High Court (IHC) summoned the principal secretary to inquire about tampering of secretariat records.

Last month, during the hearing of a petition filed by a grade-19 officer, seeking his posting as commercial attaché at a Pakistani mission abroad, Justice Noorul Haq N. Qureshi observed that the additional secretary had exercised the powers of the prime minister.

According to the petitioner, Additional Secretary Fawad Hassan Fawad instead of implementing the court orders regarding his posting returned the summary sent to him by the secretary commerce ministry on his own.

On November 27, 2014, the IHC directed the federal government to post the petitioner to a vacant station at a foreign mission abroad. In 2013, petitioner Aslam Chaudhry, a grade 19 officer of the Pakistan Audit and Accounts Service, applied for the post of a trade officer in Pakistan’s mission abroad. However, he could not avail of the opportunity on account of his mother’s sickness and requested the authorities to delay his posting but he was not considered for the said posting again.

IHC judge suspects tampering in PM Secretariat records

During the scrutiny of the official record on March 27, Justice Noorul Haq N. Qureshi noted: “It appears that on January 20, the summary was entertained by the respective authority in his office.”

A separate letter dated February 20, 2015, seems to have been written by an additional secretary at the Prime Minister Secretariat rejecting the summary without placing it before the authority.

Fawad Hassan took the decision himself and issued the letter. After receiving the summary from any ministry, it should have been processed separately and sent to the prime minister through his principal secretary, the judge remarked.

On Wednesday, Justice Qureshi expressed dissatisfaction at the response of the Prime Minister’s Secretariat during the hearing of the said matter and summoned the principal secretary Javed Aslam.

The standing counsel for the federal government Malik Zahoor Awan informed the court that because of other engagements, the principal secretary could not be contacted. Putting off further hearing, Justice Qureshi directed the principal secretary to appear before the court on next date of hearing during the first week of May.

When the standing counsel requested the court to return the original file, related to the appointment of attaché, the judge replied that he had observed tampering in the file.

“I can expect further tampering in the records if I handover this file to the officials,” he said.

“I wanted to bring this to the knowledge of the principal secretary to the prime minister so he could know what is going on in his office,” the judge further remarked.

“If you still want the file I can only hand it over to you but after recording my observations regarding tampering and then the official responsible for the custody of these documents would be in trouble,” said Justice Qureshi.

Barrister Afzal Hussain, counsel for the petitioner, adopted before the court that this was the case of judicial independence. He said that no officer could ever be allowed to flout the court orders and undermine the judiciary.

Published in Dawn, April 23rd, 2015

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