LAHORE, Jan 20: Committing one irregularity after the other, the Pakistan Railways has decided to fill up vacancies of grade 18 and 17 officers from among the grade 17 and 16 officers on the basis of seniority upon furnishing an affidavit on a non-judicial stamp paper valuing Rs50.

A letter issued on behalf of the General Manager (Personnel) here on Jan 14 says the officers, who have cleared the departmental promotion criteria, will be considered for promotion. But they will not get the next higher grade nor claim extra benefits of pay and allowances after promotion.

Legal experts understand that the letter seems to suffer from a major legal infirmity and was tantamount to an attempt to cover up another illegality, which the railway administration has been committing at least since 1989 by ordering promotion of officers without a legal mandate.

In strict legal terms, the appointments made and promotions awarded to hundreds, if not thousands, of officers up to BPS 19 by successive general managers have been without a lawful authority because a GM is not competent to issue such orders.

The PR, through a policy decision, issued a circular letter on Sept 25, 1989, saying that a three-month training course called P-71 at the Walton Training School followed by a written test and interview, would be a pre-requisite to the promotion to BPS 17. The letter did not meet legal requirements because the PR general manager was not authorized to issue such a letter when the promotion to BPS 17, which falls into the category of civil servants, was not within his legal competence.

The appointment and promotion of civil servants is regulated by the Civil Servants Act, 1973, whose section 25 stipulates that the president or a person authorized by him, is the competent authority. The Section 6 of the Civil Servants (appointment, promotion and transfer) Rules provides that the prime minister is the competent authority for making orders in the cases of officers in BPS 20 and above and the Secretary Establishment Division is competent to make such orders in regard to officers in BPS 17, 18 and 19.

The prime minister and the Secretary Establishment Division have not delegated these powers to any federal secretary or any other officer, including the PR general-manager, because the powers already delegated can not be sub-delegated as is provided by the General Clauses Act.

Besides, Rule 8-A, inserted by the federal government to the Civil Servants Act on July 25, 1998, has already dispensed with the promotional examination in BPS 17, 18 and 19 and is yet another legal instrument which settles the criteria for appointments and promotions of civil servants and which has been adopted by the Pakistan Railways.

If Section 6 and section 8-A are read together in addition to the memorandum of the establishment division, issued on Aug 6, 2003, and the General Clauses Act, the legal picture emerging in the Pakistan Railways is that all the appointments made and promotions ordered under the seal and signatures of the general manager, are unlawful.

Such appointments and promotions will be deemed as they have not been legally affected. All such officers are working in their grades without a legal authority and their reversion in their substantive grades is warranted by the law.