PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court has directed the health department not to promote any of the BPS-19 officers from the management cadre until the issuance of their seniority list.

It, however, allowed those officers to complete training required for promotion.

A bench consisting of Chief Justice Qaiser Rashid Khan and Justice Ijaz Anwar disposed of a petition jointly filed by Dr Tariq Khan and seven other doctors of the health department’s management cadre in which they challenged orders for the training of 40 officers for promotion without deciding seniority issue.

It linked the issuance of promotion orders for officers to the circulation of the seniority list.

Allows officers of management cadre to complete required training

The petitioners claimed that they were senior to those 40 officers, and it was a general principle of service laws that where no seniority list was issued or the seniority itself was disputable, no process of promotion could be started.

They claimed that 40 officers were accommodated for promotion in near future on the basis of the completion of that training.

“Since the main issue between the parties pertains to the terms and conditions of service and which is before the competent authority (chief secretary), as such the court disposes of this petition and leaves this matter to the officials concerned to decide it in accordance with the law by meeting the objections of the petitioners on seniority list,” the bench declared.

An additional advocate general, Syed Sikandar Hayat Shah, and the counsel for the respondents, Qazi Jawad Ahsanullah, requested the bench to allow the respondents to undergo training and put the matter of their promotion on hold until the circulation of the final seniority list, which has been pending with the chief secretary.

Advocate Bilal Ahmad Kakizai appeared for the petitioners and contended that initially, the rules for the Health Management Cadre were framed on Dec 11, 2008, by the provincial government whereby the management cadre was introduced in BPS-17 to BPS-20 from among the holders of the posts in general cadre with certain qualifications.

He added that in the first instance, around 63 doctors were transferred to the management cadre from the general cadre in 2009.

The counsel referred to different legal disputes among officers in the management cadre pertaining to their seniority and said that in May 2021, the chief secretary had returned the matter of the issuance of seniority list to the health and establishment departments over certain objections.

He claimed that again in July 2021, the chief secretary examined the proposed list but didn’t issue the seniority list of the management cadre due to certain observations.

The lawyer said that while the seniority issue lingered on, the health department issued three notifications in June and July whereby more than 50 doctors of the management cadre were relieved from their duties for four months for joining a mandatory promotion training at the provincial Health Services Academy.

He claimed that except the seniority list notified in 2010, no final seniority list had been published or circulated.

Published in Dawn, October 1st, 2021