ISLAMABAD, May 8: Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui of Islamabad High Court on Tuesday dismissed a petition seeking calling back of Pakistan’s permanent representative/ambassador to the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

The petition filed by a citizen through his counsel Sher Afzal Khan cited principal secretary, secretaries of the establishment, commerce and the WTO ambassador Shahid Bashir, as respondents. The court observed that the matter did not come under the ambit of the writ jurisdiction of Article 199 under which an aggrieved party may challenge actions or the authority of a public officeholder.

Advocate Khan told the court that Mr Bashir, a relative of President Asif Ali Zardari, was posted as senior joint secretary at the ministry of commerce when he maneuvered his appointment as ambassador to the WTO at Geneva, Switzerland. Pursuant to the notification dated November 5, 2009, directly issued by the principal secretary to the prime minister, the terms and conditions of Mr Bashir’s appointment were settled by the secretary commerce which stated that the tenure of the ambassador would be two years starting from November 25, 2009.

He pointed out that the term of Mr Bashir expired on November 24, 2011, and thereafter no extension was awarded to him by the competent authority. In fact, he added, under the recently-developed precedent law, the practice of filling vacancies of civil services through contractual employment has been deprecated and except for very compelling reasons, there could be no justification for retaining retired employees. Therefore, there exist no legitimate expectations of Mr Bashir being awarded extension into a contract employment.

The petition alleged that Mr Bashir had illegally been occupying the office of WTO ambassador and despite lapse of more than six months he was working without any extension order.

He requested the court to declare Mr Bashir as the unauthorised occupant of the office and direct the respondents to fill the post with a suitable candidate.