ISLAMABAD, April 6: Caretaker Interior Minister Mohammad Habib Khan, a former inspector general of the police, is embroiled in litigation with the establishment division regarding his previous service.

Mr Khan joined the Police Service of Pakistan (PSP) in 1976 as a superintendent after completing 10 years service in the army and retired in 2005. According to sources close to the litigation, Mr Khan was deprived of promotion to BPS-22 in 2002. He finally got relief when on November 13, 2012, Islamabad High Court Chief Justice Iqbal Hameedur Rehman ordered his promotion to BPS-22 with all backdate benefits.

However, the establishment division in December last year challenged the court order and filed an appeal with the IHC which is still pending adjudication.

On November 13, 1998, the then PML-N government had appointed Mr Khan as the inspector general of the Balochistan police. However, Gen Musharraf removed him on November 27, 1999, after toppling the PML-N government in October that year.

According to Ahmed Raza Qasuri, the counsel for Mr Khan, some jealous officers had spread disinformation about his client after the taking over by Gen Musharraf in 1999. This disinformation blocked his promotion and subsequently he lost his seniority, he added.

In 2002, Mr Khan filed a petition with the IHC to get his seniority and backdated benefits. In the petition, he adopted that “The Central Selection Board (CSB) in its meeting on August 9, 2002, recommended the name of the petitioner for promotion from BPS-20 to BPS-21.”

The petition said the CSB reconvened its meeting on September 6, 2002, and under certain pressure dropped his name from the list.He, however, was promoted to BPS-21 on August 5, 2003, while the matter was in the LHC but without backdate benefits. Because of that, he lost his seniority.

Mr Khan then filed a departmental appeal on August 27, 2003, seeking his seniority but it was not entertained.

He retired from service on February 14, 2005, and in 2006 approached the Federal Service Tribunal (FST) for getting BPS-22.

He adopted before the court that due to delay of one year of his promotion to BPS-21 his name could not be considered for promotion to BPS-22.

The FST accepted his petition and ordered the federal government to give him backdate benefit. But the order was not implemented and in 2012 he filed the petition with the IHC which in November ordered his promotion to BPS-22.

The establishment division filed an intra-court appeal against the ruling of the IHC chief justice and contended that the grievance of Mr Khan had been redressed and he had been given all the backdate benefits.

He, however, was not entitled to BPS-22 because neither one step senior nor one step junior to him had been promoted to BPS-22 till the time of his retirement. “The immediate junior of the petitioner was promoted on April 4, 2006 i.e. after the retirement of the petitioner,” the appeal added.

The establishment division requested to the court that “the order of November 13, 2012, passed by the judge in chamber may be set aside to the extent of grant of pro forma promotion to Major (retired) Habib Khan to BPS-22.” The IHC division bench has heard the preliminary arguments on the appeal. The case is likely to be taken up in the coming weeks.