ISLAMABAD: The promotions of over 300 ‘influential’ bureaucrats, including chairman CDA Maroof Afzal, home secretary Punjab Azam Suleman and acting Pemra chief Kamaluddin Tipu, in grade 20 and 21 have been declared as void by the Islamabad High Court (IHC).

The court directed the Establishment Division to resubmit the cases to the authorities concerned after reframing the promotion rules.

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The bureaucrats whose promotions have been reversed also included Fawad Hassan Fawad, additional secretary Prime Minister’s Secretariat, chairman Punjab chief minister’s inspection team Irfan Ali, additional secretary cabinet division Sikandar Sultan, secretary health Punjab Jawad Malik and additional secretary President Secretariat Shaista Sohail.

The court order, however, would not affect those senior bureaucrats who had been promoted “on the basis of seniority and after meeting the required threshold.”

IHC directs Establishment Division to resubmit the cases to authorities after amending promotion rules

The Central Selection Board (CSB) in May had recommended the promotions.

At least 64 other bureaucrats filed petitions with the IHC against the promotions, saying despite their eligibility they were denied promotions because of a ‘controversial’ formula the federal government introduced in 2012.

Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui of the IHC announced that “the entire process carried out by the CSB on the basis of the formula is declared illegal.”

Before 2012, the CSB was not supposed to reject the promotion of a bureaucrat unless they could not obtain 75-78 marks out of 100.

In 2012, the government introduced the new policy enabling the CSB to assign 15 per cent marks and setting 85 per cent marks for the overall performance of the officer.

The judge directed the Establishment Division to “reframe the formula by taking away the overriding effect of the marks to be awarded by the CSB and categorise the civil servants within one month.”

While arguing the case, advocates Abdul Rahim Bhatti, Barrister Masroor Shah, Fayyaz Ahmed Jandran, Rana Aftab Alam and others contended that the promotions made by the CSB in May 2015 were based on personal affiliations and not on merit.

“A majority of the elevated officers from grade 20 to 21 intriguingly happen to be the batch mates of powerful officers in the Prime Minister Secretariat,” they claimed.

The counsel argued that the CSB kept in view “the updated record, field experience, integrity, performance and reputation of the officer known to the board members as well as pen picture contained in the performance evaluation reports (PERs) and the training evaluation reports (TERs) to evaluate the officers.” They said the minimum threshold of marks for the promotions was 75.

The CSB had the discretion to award 15 marks keeping in view the integrity and personal reputation of the officers. In some special cases, the board had nine additional marks for the officers who were above 58 years of age and could not attend the mandatory staff college course (for promotions from grade 18-22) due to unavoidable circumstances.

During the promotions of the bureaucrats in May 2015, these 15-plus nine marks were massively used to provide a total aggregate of 75 marks to some of the low-scoring officers while many others who had genuine 75-plus marks from their service records were ignored, the counsel told the court.

Moreover, a circular issued on February 10, 2014, placed 15 marks

at the discretion of the CSB while five marks meant for integrity/general reputation/perception. Through the circular, the government empowered the board not to recommend the promotion of a bureaucrat who would fail to obtain a minimum three out of the five marks.

Hence these five marks have been given an overriding effect on the remaining 95 marks. It means that despite securing 95 per cent marks, an officer cannot be promoted unless the board grants him/her at least three out of the five marks.

The petitioners claimed that giving such a power to the CSB to decide the fate of the bureaucrats on the basis of the five marks was against the principle of natural justice.

The IHC declared the ‘veto’ power of the CSB as illegal. The court directed the Establishment Division that “the assessment (of bureaucrats) shall be made on the basis of an entire performance and in case any tangible material asking question about the integrity of a civil servant is available, he may be confronted with the same and then any opinion of deferment or supersession may be made.”

During the hearing, Additional Attorney General Afnan Karim Kundi informed the court that the prime minister had converted the supersession of the officers into deferment. It means that the government expressed the willingness to reconsider the officers for promotion in the upcoming meeting of the CSB likely to be held in September. He argued that since the right to promotion had not been denied to the officers, the petitions may be dismissed.

Published in Dawn, July 28th, 2015

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