ISLAMABAD, June 27: The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that employees of a majority of government corporations not governed by the statutory rules are not civil servants.

Such employees, therefore, cannot avail remedy from the Federal Services Tribunal to redress their grievances.

On January 20, a nine-member bench of the Supreme Court, while hearing 452 different cases, had reserved its judgment on whether teachers/employees of PAF educational institutes were civil servants under section 2(1-b) of the CSA, 1973, and whether they could invoke the jurisdiction of the FST. The judgement on the vires of section 2-A of the Service Tribunal Act had also been reserved.

Authored by Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, the 93-page judgment said that under section 2-A of the STA, the cases of the employees who did not fall within the definition of civil servants as defined in section 2(1-b) of the CSA would have no remedy before the service tribunal functioning under Article 212 (administrative courts and tribunals) of the Constitution and they were free to avail appropriate remedy.

Regarding the effect of the judgment on pending cases before the apex court and the FST, the order said the cases decided by the Supreme Court would not be opened and if any review petition, miscellaneous application or contempt application was pending against a judgment, it should be heard independently and should not be affected by the ratio of the judgment.

Likewise, proceedings instituted either by an employee or by the employer, pending before the supreme court, against the judgment of the service tribunal should stand abated, leaving the parties to avail remedy prevailing prior to promulgation of section 2-A of the STA, 1973.

The order said cases or proceedings not protected or covered by the judgment would also be deemed abated and the aggrieved persons might approach competent forums to redress their grievances within 90 days and the bar of limitation provided by respective laws should not operate against them till the expiry of the stipulated period.

It said the cases in which the order of the service tribunal had been implemented should remain intact for 90 days or till the filing of appropriate proceedings, which ever was earlier.

The FST would decide pending cases under section 2-A of the STA.

The bench noted that under section 2-A of the STA, the legislature had not declared the service of a person in a government controlled organization to be in the “service in connection with affairs of the federation.” Under Article 240 of the constitution, ‘service of Pakistan’ means “any service, post or office in connection with affairs of the federation.”