KARACHI: A referee judge of the Sindh High Court has dismissed an application seeking an appointment to the education department on the deceased quota after a split decision by a division bench of the SHC.

Justice Adnan Iqbal Chaudhry noted that the judgement of the Supreme Court handed down in 2024 against the deceased or son quota would also affect applications under process by relevant authorities while the appointment of the petitioner had also not been made yet.

Sanaullah petitioned the SHC last year seeking directive for deputy commissioner (DC) of Larkana to convene a meeting of the district recruitment committee (DRC) for his appointment as junior clerk (BPS-11) in the school education and literacy department under Rule 11-A of the Sindh Civil Servants (Appointment, Promotion and Transfer) Rules (APT Rules), 1974 on the deceased quota as recommended by the scrutiny committee.

The petitioner asserted that a scrutiny committee headed by chief secretary of Sindh found him eligible for appointment on such post and forwarded his case for further process by the DRC.

Matter sent to Justice Chaudhry after split decision by SHC division bench

However, the DC in comments argued that 36 cases were referred to the DRC for appointment on the deceased quota including the petitioner and the meeting was scheduled for October 2024, but in the meanwhile the Supreme Court had handed down the judgement in the case of General Post Office Islamabad vs Muhammad Jalal declaring Rule 11-A and all other rules and policies providing deceased or son quota in government service as unconstitutional.

Initially, a two-judge bench of the SHC comprising Justice Muhammad Saleem Jessar and Justice Adnan-ul-Karim Memon had dismissed the petition in March last year in view of the fact that Rule 11-A of the APT had since been omitted.

Thereafter, the petitioner had preferred a review application on the ground that the SC’s judgement did not operate retrospectively to apply to his case as the scrutiny committee had already processed the application for appointment on the deceased quota prior to the judgement in question and such aspect was overlooked by the bench in dismissing his petition.

Justice Jessar was inclined to allow the review application, recalled dismissal order and directed the respondents to consider the petitioner’s case for appointment on the deceased quota under Rule 11-A of the APT Rules.

He had noted that while dismissing the petition the bench did not notice that the SC’s judgement did not operate retrospectively and such aspect constituted an error of law apparent on the face of the record thus meriting a review.

On the other hand, Justice Memon dismissed the review application and observed that the bench had duly considered the question of retrospectivity before dismissing petition and thus, there was no error apparent on the record to consider a review as the SC’s judgement had only saved appointments already made and it was binding precedent to stop any further appointment under Rule 11-A.

Therefore, the matter was referred to Justice Chaudhry to decide the same and he noted that the petitioner’s application for appointment had been cleared by scrutiny committee, but it was far from an “appointment already made” as the DRC had yet to convene to assess his credentials and competence.

“Clearly, the Supreme Court was conscious that its judgment will hit applications under process by relevant authorities, but did not exempt those from the purview of its declaration while exempting only the appointments already made and rules/polices made for legal heirs of martyred personnel and those for civil servants who become victims of terrorist activities”, he added.

The referee judge also noted that the SC had issued further direction that offending rules and policies should be withdrawn forthwith leaving no doubt that the intent was to stop further orders of appointment on the deceased and son quota. Therefore, the review application was not maintainable to begin with, he concluded.

Published in Dawn, January 15th, 2026