ISLAMABAD, June 29: Despite the Supreme Court orders, the government has been unable to appoint chairman and members of Federal Service Tribunal (FST).
The apex court had on March 25 ordered the government to make the appointments in consultation with the Chief Justice of the relevant High Courts within 30 days and made it financially independent.
But the government servants have to bear the brunt for delay in appointments because their cases are not being heard, Dawn has learnt. Professor Kazim Hussain, a retired principal of a college, said: “I have been deprived of ad hoc allowances as they were not made part of pensions. I have filed a petition regarding merging of all the previous ad hoc allowances in pay which were granted to the civil servants but unfortunately FST is not functional.”
“In 2004 I filed a case in FST regarding deductions of house allowance from both husband and wife’s salaries (if both working at same station) and FST announced a decision in my favour but now I have been told that cases will not be heard till the appointment of new chairman,” he said.
President, Federal Government College Teachers Association (FGCTA) Tahir Mahmood while talking to Dawn said that the FST played important role in mitigating the government servants’ grievances.
“Government servants are always victims of different types of injustices, departmental persecution and multiple types of promotion and seniority problems.
“The government employees move FST to get resolved their service matters like dismissal from service, termination, forced retirement, delayed promotion, seniority and suspension cases, etc. In the absence of FST, aggrieved government employees and pensioners stand nowhere,” he said.
In the era of Z.A Bhutto, Service Tribunal Act 1973 was passed. The tribunals established under the Act have been exercising exclusively in the services matters of government employees.
Mr Tahir said that absence of FST had definitely become a source of frustration for civil servants.
They think with the non-functional FST they would become victim of injustice and exploitation more than ever.
Advocate Supreme Court G.M. Chaudhry said: “Whenever there is any conflict or disagreements about rights and obligations among civil servants of different ranks, they knock the door of FST as the last resort and ray of hope.”
He said that the tribunal was non-functional, due to which the petitioners/civil servants are suffering as their petitions were not taken up. He appealed to the government to implement the Supreme Court orders immediately so that FST become functional as thousands of service cases are pending.
An officer of FST said: “Keeping in view the worries and concerns of government servants, FST may be immediately made functional with complete autonomy according to the orders of the Supreme Court of Pakistan. It will help resolve the issues of the government servants.”