• Officer can’t grant a benefit the law itself does not permit
• No independent act of maladministration established to justify intervention

ISLAMABAD: The Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) has ruled that the Federal Ombudsman cannot exercise jurisdiction to bypass the entitlement conditions prescribed under the Employees’ Old-Age Benefits Act, 1976, for the grant of an old-age benefit that the law does not permit.

“Unless the decision-making process is attended by an act or omission independently answering the statutory description of maladministration, the jurisdiction of the Federal Ombudsman cannot be invoked to circumvent the conditions of entitlement prescribed by the statute or to confer a benefit which the statute itself does not permit,” Chief Justice Aminuddin Khan observed in a judgement authored by him.

Headed by the FCC chief justice, a three-judge bench comprising Justice Aamer Farooq and Justice Ali Baqar Najafi took up an appeal filed by the Employees’ Old-Age Benefits Institution (EOBI) challenging the March 11, 2026, judgement of the Islamabad High Court (IHC), which had ordered payment of an old-age pension to a former Askari Bank employee, Javed Iqbal Bhatti.

While allowing the EOBI’s appeal, the FCC set aside the orders of the Federal Ombudsman, the president of Pakistan and the IHC.

During the hearing, EOBI was represented by Advocate Umer Ijaz Gillani, while respondent Javed Iqbal Bhatti appeared in person.

Mr Bhatti was an employee of Askari Bank Limited and served the bank for five years and 10 months, from July 1, 2008, until May 9, 2014. Upon his application for old-age benefits under the Employees’ Old-Age Benefits Act, 1976, he was sanctioned an old-age grant of Rs48,000 on Dec 16, 2015.

Subsequently, in view of the Supreme Court’s 2017 judgement in Workers’ Welfare Funds, Ministry of Human Resources Development, under which the applicability of the Act to banking institutions was excluded, the respondent’s entitlement to benefits under the Act ceased to subsist.

Aggrieved by the decision, he invoked the jurisdiction of the Federal Ombudsman, who, through an order dated June 19, 2023, directed payment of an old-age pension to the respondent.

The order was challenged before the president of Pakistan, but was upheld on Sept 4, 2024. EOBI subsequently challenged both orders before the IHC, which, through the impugned judgement, declined to interfere and upheld the orders passed by the Federal Ombudsman and the president.

The FCC chief justice observed that by assuming jurisdiction and directing payment of a benefit notwithstanding the express statutory conditions governing its entitlement, the Federal Ombudsman had, in effect, substituted himself for the authority to which the legislature had entrusted the power to determine such entitlement, thereby travelling beyond the jurisdiction vested in him.

The president, and thereafter the High Court, also failed to maintain the distinction between an act or omission amounting to “maladministration”, which may attract the jurisdiction of the Federal Ombudsman under Article 9 of the Establishment of the Office of Wafaqi Mohtasib (Ombudsman) Order, 1983, and the determination of a substantive statutory entitlement, which falls to be made in accordance with the mechanism prescribed by the governing enactment, the judgement said.

The impugned IHC judgement could not be sustained as it failed to give effect to the mandatory qualifying requirement embodied in Section 22 of the Act and, at the same time, overlooked the jurisdictional limits within which the Federal Ombudsman may exercise authority under Article 9 of the Order, the FCC emphasised.

“Once the respondent did not satisfy the statutory conditions for old-age pension and no act or omission constituting maladministration was established independently of the refusal of that claim, the jurisdictional foundation for intervention by the Federal Ombudsman ceased to exist,” it added.

“Likewise, neither the president nor the high court could sustain an order which, in substance, conferred a statutory benefit despite the absence of the conditions upon which the legislature had made that benefit dependent,” the FCC concluded.

Published in Dawn, October 9th, 2026