The Islamabad High court Monday adjourned an intra-court appeal moved by Federation challenging judgement of a single bench in the promotion cases of bureaucrats till Tuesday.
A division bench comprising Justice Aamer Farooq and Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb resumed hearing of the case.
During the course of proceedings, Masroor Ali Shah counsel for Ghani Ur Rehman Commandant Frontier Constabulary (FC) argued that my client had been superseded on verbal opinion.
He further said that there were no tangible or documented materials pertaining to reason that supersede Rehman.
Moreover, he alleged that an officer detained in Bannu Jail had been promoted whereas cases against him were pending before the Peshawar High Court. Subsequently, the bench adjourned further hearing of the case till February 23.
Earlier Additional Attorney General (AAG) Afnan Karim Kundi completed his arguments stating that many of the petitions were based on speculations and only four to five petitioners had actually challenged the Central Selection Board’s (CSB) decision on the grounds that they were superseded.
Many of the 60 odd petitions were “copy paste”, probably filed by the same counsel, he added.
Kundi said that petitioners were fine with categorization and overriding effect because they had never challenged it.
He emphasized that deferment was not adverse as those, whose promotion had been deferred, were saved from being superseded.
He said, “There was no other option.” The officers were considered for promotion but reasons were not recorded in all the forms when they were ultimately deferred.
The single bench gave “wrong references” in its judgement as both the memos had different forms attached with them but the bench only referred the 2012 memo, he added.
It may be mentioned that on July 27, 2015, IHC’s Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui set aside the promotions, directed the government to revise its promotion criteria and reconsider promotions of the officers whose names had been deferred in the (CSB) meeting.
The court had also declared that the entire process carried out by the CSB on the basis of the formula was void. The formula placed 15 marks at the discretion of the CSB. Five marks for integrity/general reputation/perception had the overriding effect on the remaining marks.