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Even though the downgrading of these out of turn promotees from BS-22 to BS-21 was imminent and automatic as a result of the court's decision, sources said the government had already made up its mind to retain most of its favourite civil servants on the same positions.
Realising the significance of the matter, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani felt it necessary to issue a statement to dispel an impression of any chaos in the rank and file of bureaucracy.
While making it clear that the government would respect the Supreme Court's verdict, Mr Gilani said that “officers should continue to work and need not be disheartened since the government would look after their interests and justice will be done across the board”.
However, this does not end the dilemma immediately faced by those officials who stand reverted to a lower grade.
Some of them told Dawn that perhaps it would also end with the return home of Premier Gilani from Bhutan. But indications are that all has already been decided and most of those promoted out of turn would continue to serve in the same capacity of federal secretaries and other top position, albeit in a temporary or 'acting' capacity.
In September last year, Prime Minister Gilani promoted over 50 officers to the highest grade. Superseded officers challenged the decision in the Supreme Court. The court, accepting their contention that they were ignored by the prime minister for no obvious reasons, through its detailed judgment on Wednesday has demoted all promoted officers who presently are serving at various important positions.
According to the sources, the Prime Minister's Secretariat had already put in place a contingency plan to handle the situation which could arise after the judgment of the Supreme Court.
Commenting on the decision, former interior secretary Tasnim Noorani said that the promotion of over 50 officers in one go to BS-22 by the prime minister last year was unprecedented and probably it was the number of promotions, not the criterion, which attracted attention of the Supreme Court. Eight to 10 officers are usually promoted at one time to BS-22, he added.
“Under current rules, the prime minister does have the discretion to effect promotions in BS-22. Maybe this time the establishment division has to scratch its head a bit hard to determine grounds of ignored officers that why they were not picked up for promotion, which earlier was not done,” Mr Noorani said.
In reply to another question, the former secretary said “I think it would not create any problem for the government since it can keep all of them in current positions until reprocessing of next promotions for BS-22 are done under the guidelines of the Supreme Court decision.”
As a result of promotions ordered by the prime minister last year, a number of important positions were filled by the promoted officers starting from his principal secretary to secretaries of interior, information, privatisation commission, petroleum, industries & production and labour.
A number of other positions were also given to the promoted officers, but now after the decision of the Supreme Court the incumbents will look after them as their additional or acting charges until the prime minister fills them with new appointments. These are special finance secretary, chairman of Federal Board of Revenue, chairman of Capital Development Authority, secretary of minority affairs, tourism secretary, zakat & usher secretary, managing director of Overseas Pakistanis Foundation, chairperson of National Tariff Commission, secretary of special initiative, secretary for inter-provincial coordination division, director general of NARA, secretaries of religious affairs and sports divisions, secretary to the election commission, chief secretaries of Balochistan, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab, managing director of Smeda, social welfare secretary, secretary Wafaqi Mohtasib and housing secretary.
The major chunk of promotions - 20 - went to the district management group. Important positions such as principal secretary (Ms Nargis Sethi,) petroleum secretary (Kamran Lashari) chairman of FBR (Sohail Ahamad) interior secretary (Qamar Zaman) chief secretary of Punjab (Javed Mehmood).
The secretariat group followed with 10 promotions, the Police Services got nine, the foreign service five, audit and accounts service got three, income tax two while commerce and information groups got one each. There was one beneficiary in the National Assembly secretariat, too.
