KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Friday observed that the Constitution requires equality in the application of law and not repetition of an illegality, as an employee cannot claim an appointment prohibited by applicable law merely because another person has obtained an unlawful advantage.

A two-judge regular bench of the SHC headed by Justice Riazat Ali Sahar also noted that the government cannot disregard a lawful policy, an operative judicial determination and its own implementation of such determination in favour of employees belonging to the same class.

While disposing of a petition filed by two contractual employees seeking regularisation, it further said that the petitioners were not entitled to regularisation simply because they had served since 2014, nor could the respondents answer their claim simply by pointing to the word “contract” in their appointment letters.

Two individuals petitioned the SHC in 2022 and sought regularisation of their contractual services as data processing assistants (BS-14) under the Land Administration and Revenue Management Information System (LARMIS) of the Board of Revenue with effect from their respective initial appointments and with consequential service and financial benefits.

Their principal grievance was that employees recruited under the same scheme and through a comparable selection process had been regularised pursuant to earlier judicial decisions, whereas their own cases had not received similar consideration.

While referring to an earlier decision of the SHC about recruitment of data processing assistants in LARMIS, the bench noted that the court had directed regularisation of various petitioners subject to codal formalities and deprecated the requirement of a fresh selection process.

“The decision constitutes a particularly material coordinate-bench authority in the present controversy. Nevertheless, identity of designation alone is insufficient; the comparison must extend to recruitment, eligibility, approved establishment, terms of engagement and the legal source of regularisation”, it added.

While disposing of the petition, it directed the senior member of the Board of Revenue to examine the petitioners’ case in coordination with the administrative and finance departments in light of earlier orders of the high court, while applying the governing service rules and the principles settled by the Supreme Court.

Published in Dawn, November 7th, 2026