ISLAMABAD: The Central Selection Board (CSB) on Monday started reconsidering the promotion cases of about 1,200 senior bureaucrats and will complete the process by June 23. However, the promotions may raise legal questions over the seniority list.

Pursuant to a Supreme Court judgment, the CSB is reconsidering the promotion cases recommended in May 2015, without applying the controversial formula the government had introduced in 2014 – under which the CSB declined promotions to scores of officers for not attaining three out of the five marks allocated for ‘integrity’.

In May 2015, the CSB recommended the promotions of over 400 bureaucrats to grade 20 and 21. These included Secretary to the Prime Minister Fawad Hassan Fawad, Sindh Inspector General of Police (IGP) A.D. Khwaja, Balochistan Chief Secretary Shoaib Mir Memon, Civil Services Academy Director General Maroof Afzal, Punjab Communication and Works Secretary Mohammad Mushtaq Ahmed, Establishment Division Additional Secretary Aamir Ashraf Khwaja, AJK IGP Bashir Ahmed, Intelligence Bureau Joint Director General Mohammad Salman, Punjab Constabulary Commandant Husain Asghar and Balochistan Constabulary Commandant Dr Mujeebur Rehman Khan.

The IHC on June 8, 2016 declared the promotions illegal, while the Supreme Court upheld the decision on March 13, 2017.

Govt rescheduled board meeting after promotions made in May 2015 were declared illegal by apex court

The federal government finally scheduled the meeting of the CSB for June 19-23 to reconsider the promotions.

However, the officers who could not be promoted in May 2015 fear that the CSB will not recommend them for promotion. The CSB may contrive new ways and justifications to deprive certain officers of promotions, a bureaucrat told Dawn on the condition of anonymity.

The civil servants promoted to grade 20 and 21 by CSB meetings held in May 2015 have, by now, completed two years in their respective pay scales and are aspiring for further elevation.

The bureaucrat said the Supreme Court’s decision had blocked these civil servants’ smooth road to grade 22.

These officers are more worried about protecting their seniority in grade 21 from May 2015 onwards – so that they may qualify for the upcoming promotions to grade 22 through the High Powered Selection Board (HPSB), which likely to be convened in July.

However, the government could face a dilemma in determining the seniority of grade 21 civil servants if they are promoted on reconsideration by the CSB.

If such civil servants are given seniority from June 2017, they will lose two years of statutory tenure in the said pay scale and many of them will retire before completing another two years required for further promotion to grade 22.

If the officers who were declined promotions in 2015 are recommended by the CSB for promotions and given backdated benefits, it will cost millions of rupees to the government, an official of the finance ministry said.

But given the longstanding controversy surrounding the issue, the legal considerations around the seniority issue will be more important than its cost, he added.

From the legal perspective, another officer explained, existing civil service laws allow the retrospective promotion of a civil servant by a period of two years. The law provides that “seniority in a post, service or cadre to which a civil servant is promoted shall take effect from the date of regular appointment to that post”.

The Civil Servants Act 1973 defines a regular appointment as the appointment which has been made in the prescribed manner.

He pointed out that the Appointment, Promotion and Transfer (APT) Rules 1973 provide a three-step manner for a regular appointment, adding that in 2015, CSB members followed a promotion process and criteria alien to the Civil Servants Act 1973, the APT Rules 1973, and the promotion policy’s quantification procedures.

Both the IHC and the apex court declared illegal the criteria followed by the CSB in 2015.

This has created problems for the civil servants promoted to grade 21 in 2015, the officer maintained.

If the promotions of these officers have not been made in the prescribed manner in 2015, their seniority cannot be determined from 2015, he added.

When contacted, Establishment Secretary Syed Tahir Shahbaz told Dawn that it was a complicated manner and the CSB would consider the promotion cases of each individual separately, adding that the board may decide the issue of seniority in accordance with the law.

However, he said that since the proceedings of CSB were in progress, he could not comment on the issue of seniority.

Published in Dawn, June 20th, 2017