PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court has stopped the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA) from issuing final appointment orders to fill its different positions.
However, the NCCIA was allowed by Justice Ijaz Anwar and Justice Mohammad Faheem Wali to continue with the recruitment process.
The bench issued notices to the respondents, including the directors general of the NCCIA and Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and secretaries of the interior, establishment and finance divisions, seeking their comments within a fortnight on a petition filed by eight NCCIA employees for the completion of their regularisation process prior to any new recruitments.
The petitioners include Sub-Inspector Mukhtar Ahmad and seven other contractual employees.
Allows investigation agency to continue with recruitment process
They requested the court to declare that the case of their regularisation, being already pending before the competent authority, was liable to be considered and decided in accordance with law, prior to undertaking or finalising any fresh appointment against the posts in question.
The petitioners sought orders for the continuation of the recruitment process initiated pursuant to an advertisement of Aug 23, 2026, overlapped with or prejudiced the petitioners pending claim for regularisation, to be unlawful, arbitrary and without lawful authority.
They requested the court to ask respondents to decide their pending cases of regularisation within a time-bound period, and thereafter proceed with any fresh recruitment, if otherwise warranted, strictly in accordance with law.
The petitioners said that any appointment made in derogation of the petitioners pending regularisation claim should remain subject to the final determination of the petitioners’ rights and should not prejudice or adversely affect their seniority or consequential service benefits.
The counsel for petitioners, Mian Mohammad Imran, said that the petitioners were initially appointed on a contractual basis and had received extensions from time to time.
He said that in view of their experience, the petitioners’ cases had been referred for regularisation and a selection committee had also been constituted.
The lawyer, however, said that the posts occupied by them were subsequently advertised for recruitment in Aug 2026.
He added that similarly placed employees also approached the Lahore High Court by filing a petition wherein comments had been called and interim relief had also been granted.
Mr Imran said that the NCCIA was a specialised agency established by the federal government in 2025 to investigate cyber-crimes within the country.
He said that the NCCIA replaced the FIA’s Cyber-Crimes Wing and was set up under the Prevention of Cyber Crimes Act, 2016, with the wing’s posts along with resources transferred to the agency.
The lawyer contended that though the petitioners’ initial engagement was described as contractual, the substantive character of their employment had, with the passage of time and in view of the continuing nature of the functions performed by them, ceased to bear the attributes of a genuinely temporary engagement.
He argued that through official communication on Jul 2, 2026, addressed to the ministry of interior, it was informed that the DG NCCIA being head of the department proposed to constitute the Departmental Selection Committee for the regularisation purposes of the petitioners along with other employees and the petitioners case received express recognition from the department itself.
Mr Imran said the NCCIA declared in that communication that it intended to regularise the services of 216 officers from BPS-1 to BPS-14 presently working on the contractual basis against sanctioned regular posts.
The lawyer contended that despite the pendency of the regularisation process of the petitioners and other employees, the government issued the impugned advertisement for fresh recruitment against a number of posts.
Published in Dawn, October 24th, 2026
