ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan is expected to preside over a high-powered promotion board meeting on Monday (today) to consider elevation of senior bureaucrats to the top-most grade amid serious legal challenges.
The meeting has been called by the establishment division to seek prime minister’s approval for promotion of the BS-21 officers on existing seniority list to grade-22 without taking into account latest ground realities.
Only last week the Supreme Court had ordered restoration of the seniority of the officers who had been promoted in January 2018 after being denied promotion to BS-21 over the past three years.
Seniority list seeking Imran’s approval doesn’t comply with Supreme Court order
Some officers expecting elevation to BS-22 rose in seniority as their seniors were denied promotion. With restoration of backdated seniority of such officers, their juniors expecting elevation to BS-22 may lose their prospects.
“The haste in calling the high-powered board meeting without first re-working the seniority list based on the latest order of the court could affect Prime Minister Imran Khan’s pronouncement for meritocracy and open a fresh round of litigations in the unending controversy over promotion of senior-most civil servants,” said a senior official.
Since 2007 when the establishment division had amended the promotion policy of 1982 and placed 15 marks for evaluation of civil servants for promotion at the discretion of promotion board members, promotion controversies had flooded apex court and high courts, consuming considerable time of the judiciary and public offices seeking relief against misuse of the discretionary powers.
After years of controversies, the Islamabad High Court in its verdict on June 8, 2016 finally struck down the establishment division’s move of giving discretionary power to the promotion board to give 15 marks to civil servants. The apex court upheld the IHC decision on March 13, 2017.
While upholding the IHC decision against board members’ discretion in the promotion process, the Supreme Court directed the establishment division to reconsider officers’ promotion, deferment and supersession made on the basis of the discretionary powers in 2015 and make fresh evaluations in such cases on the basis of civil servants’ service dossiers, practically eliminating the role of 15 discretionary marks in promotion process.
In yet another office memorandum issued on June 18, 2017, the establishment division asked the relevant officials to reconsider the past cases in compliance with the Supreme Court’s directions but maintained the board members discretionary power to give 15 marks.
On reconsideration of the past cases in June 2017, the board members, therefore, produced substantially the same promotions, deferments and supersessions which had been made earlier in 2015 on the basis of discretionary powers.
The move raised charge of contempt against secretary of the establishment division and other board members that was finally settled by the Supreme Court on Oct 25, 2018.
The actual law of promotion is contained in Section 7(1)(b)(ii) and Section 7(1)(c) of the Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC) Ordinance, 1977; Section 25(2) of the Civil Servants Act, 1973; and Rule 8-A of the Civil Servants (Appointment, Promotion and Transfer) Rules, 1973.
Section 7(1)(b)(ii) of the FPSC Ordinance empowers the Federal Public Service Commission to advise the president on promotion policy for promotion to BS-18 and above, while Section 25(2) of the Civil Servants Act empowers the president to enact such promotion policy in the form of rules. The president has already enacted such promotion policy in the APT Rules.
Rule 8-A, added to the APT Rules in 1998, enumerates precisely only three criteria for determination of merit for promotions in grades BS-17 to BS-22 including required minimum length of service, score in mandatory trainings and score in a promotion-related departmental examination, thus eliminating any other criterion or 15-mark discretion. The deviation from this law and induction of 15-mark discretion led to the lengthy litigation process.
The establishment division did not notify the posts falling in BS-17 to BS-22 and mentioned in Rule 8-A for promotion-related departmental examination under Section 7(1)(C) of the FPSC Ordinance. It rather made a parallel promotion policy of its own through office memorandums inconsistent with the Rule 8-A of the APT Rules.
The promotions to BS-22 are made under the Civil Servants (Promotion to the Post of Secretary BS-22 and Equivalent) Rules, 2010. These rules modified certain specified office memorandums but did not supersede or modify the three qualifications for promotion to BS-22 prescribed by the president in Rule 8-A of the APT Rules.
Some senior bureaucrats were able to circumvent two of the three mandatory qualifications for promotion to BS-22 listed in Rule 8-A.
An official said that the prime minister would need to seek the whole truth before promoting senior officers and resist waiver of the two mandatory qualifications of training and departmental examination given in the law for civil servants’ elevation to BS-22 to achieve the objectives of efficient bureaucracy and good governance.
Published in Dawn, October 29th, 2018
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