KARACHI, April 7: The Service Bar Association has urged President Pervez Musharraf to intervene personally and ensure early appointment of the Federal Service Tribunal chairman. In a statement on Thursday, SBA senior vice-president Mohammad Nawaz Shaikh said the office of FST chairman had been lying vacant since Jan 31 when former Sindh High Court judge Amanullah Abbasi relinquished charge on completion of his tenure. The tribunal had remained paralyzed since it could not function without its chairman.

He said six members of the tribunal based in Islamabad and two members each posted at Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar and Quetta were sitting idle along with their staff for the last couple of months. About 18000 cases were already pending and more were piling up without any action being taken on them.

The tribunal’s inability to work, he said, was causing anxiety and suffering among government, semi-government and corporation employees whose cases were pending or who wanted to move the tribunal against departmental actions and decisions against them. It was occasioning loss to the exchequer also as the entire expenditure on the tribunal was going to waste.

Besides, any possible orders for reinstatement with retrospective effect or payment of past remunerations and benefits would burden the exchequer unnecessarily, the SBC vice-chief said.