KARACHI, Sept 30: The Sindh High Court directed the provincial prosecution department to issue within 30 days posting letters to the deputy prosecutors-general, assistant prosecutors-general, deputy district public prosecutors, assistant district public prosecutors and deputy directors for monitoring and evaluation selected and recommended by the provincial public service commission in February this year and issued offer letters in March.

Even if the department failed to make the requisite postings within the stipulated period, the petitioners would be entitled to receive their salaries from next month onward, a division bench comprising Justices Khilji Arif Hussain and Bin Yamin said in the operative part of a detailed order allowing several petitions by 64 successful candidates to the posts advertised early last year. Advocates Anwar Mansoor Khan and Abdus Salam Memon appeared for the petitioners, who are practising lawyers. In all, 168 candidates were selected for different posts and 64 of them approached the court.

The petitioners and their counsel said the selection process began with the advertisement of vacancies. Over one thousand lawyers applied for the vacancies in accordance with their eligibility, age and practical experience. The Sindh Public Service Commission processed the applications and conducted written tests and viva voce examinations. About 200 candidates were recommended for the posts of additional prosecutors-general, deputy prosecutors-general, assistant prosecutors-general, district public prosecutors, deputy district public prosecutors and assistant district public prosecutors. Offer letters were issued to them as per practice after medical check-up and police clearance. The candidates signified their acceptance.

Acting in an arbitrary manner, the government posted the additional prosecutors-general and district public prosecutors and they were performing their duties in the courts assigned to them. The posting letters for the remaining jobs in grades 17, 18 and 19 were, however, withheld. The candidates made several representations to the government and the department concerned but failed to elicit any response. They moved the court.

The court issued notices to the respondents and restrained them in the meantime from filling up the vacancies. The provincial law officers appearing in the case were unable to defend the government failure to issue posting letters after issuance of offer letters to the petitioners and receipt of acceptance letters from them. They vaguely and feebly hinted at the validity of appointment letters issued during the caretaker regime.

The petitioners’ counsel pointed out that the selection process commenced well before the induction of the caretaker regime in November 2007. The selection in any case was made by the Sindh Public Service Commission, which was not a ‘caretaker’ institution. Successful candidates for the vacancies of additional prosecutors-generals and district public prosecutors, who ranked higher than the petitioners but were selected through the same process, were allowed to their join their duty and the former even appeared before the bench seized of the petitions.

In its comments in the medical officers’ case, the counsel pointed out, the government had taken the position that ‘unlike the doctor petitioners, the lawyer petitioners were rightly selected under the standard selection procedure’. There was no justification for withholding the posting letters and the government action was clearly arbitrary and discriminatory. The petitioners, they said, had a vested right they could not be deprived of.