KARACHI, Feb 19: An inordinate delay is being caused in the disposal of appeals of over 4,027 employees of the federal government and public sector organizations in the Federal Services Tribunal as the government is learnt to have been dragging its feet on the appointment of two members for the Karachi bench of the FST.
The posts of the two members for Karachi bench have been lying vacant since the retirement of the then members, Akbar Memon and Barkat Ali Baloch, both former district and sessions judges, in October last.
According to rules, the president appoints members of the FST on the recommendations of the prime minister. Well-placed sources told Dawn that about a dozen names were under consideration for the jobs and a summary to this effect was still lying with the prime minister.
They said the FST had become more prestigious as it dealt with certain high profile cases. "Many retired bureaucrats and former officials from the police services are now wish to be appointed members of the tribunal", the sources said.
At present there are nine members of the tribunal, including its chairman, Justice (retd) Aman Ullah Abbasi, out of the total sanctioned strength of 11 members. Three benches are functioning at Islamabad and one in Lahore. Seven of them are retired bureaucrats and two former judges.
The members included Hasan Raza Pasha, ex-secretary of interior division, Zubair Qudwai, former chief secretary of Sindh, Jahanzeb Burki, former IG of Punjab, Iqbal Khan, Abdur Rashid Baloch, Abdul Razzak and Moazzam Hiyat.
Ironically, the sources said, the Balochistan and the NWFP had no representation in the tribunal as none of the members belonged to the two provinces. The appeals of the employees in the NWFP are heard at Islamabad, they said.
The sources said Nazar Mohammed Shaikh, a former federal secretary in BPS 22, who was appointed an FST member on Dec 1, 2001 initially for the Islamabad bench, was transferred to the Karachi bench following the retirement of the two members in October last.
They said the Karachi bench sat twice for one week each during the past four months. The first bench comprised members Nazar Mohammed Shaikh and Zubair Ahmed Qudwai, former chief secretary of Sindh, and the seconds consisted of FST chairman Abbasi and member Nazar Mohammed Shaikh.
The sources said the bench comprising chairman and Shaikh decided 40 cases in one week (Dec 26 to 31, 2003). The sources said the number of appeals filed with the Karachi bench of the FST was much higher than in other provinces as it also dealt with the appeals from Balochistan.
The number of appeals, being instituted with the Karachi bench, is swelling day by day as the disposal of the appeals has come to a halt due to the absence of FST members", they said.
The sources said the number of the appeals pending in November last was 3,902, which has now risen to 4,027. They said keeping in view the swelling number of the appeals, there was valid justification for constituting at least two benches in Karachi.
The sources said a decision to constitute separate benches for Balochistan and the NWFP had been under consideration for a long time on the requests of the two provinces.
The figures collated by Dawn showed that a total of 4,027 appeals are pending disposal in the tribunal. Of them, 1,251 were filed by the civil servants and the remaining 2,776 were filed by the employees of public sector organizations, including Pakistan International Airline, Pakistan Steel Mills, and Karachi Electric Supply Corporation. Some of the appeals have been pending since 1997.
Inquiries showed the Karachi bench of the FST decided as many as 1,481 appeals during the year 2003, while 1,402 appeals were filed with the tribunal. In 2002, the Karachi bench disposed of as many as 1,071 and received 1,673 appeals.
Lawyers dealing with the appeals of the sacked employees said the tribunal decided more cases in favour of the applicants. However, they complained that the decisions given by the tribunal were not smoothly implemented by the relevant departments.
They further said the government departments also did not follow the rules while dismissing an employee from services, otherwise, the number of appeals in the tribunal would be very low. The lawyers frequently appearing in the FST include M. M. Aqil Awan, Nawaz Shaikh, Shabbir Awan, Siddique Mirza and Abdul Ghafoor Mangi.