ISLAMABAD: The Establishment Division (ED) on Tuesday instructed the ministries, divisions, departments and provincial governments to implement the Supreme Court (SC) orders regarding the repatriation of officers to their parent departments.
Sources told this scribe that ED has issued a Memorandum to all ministries, divisions departments and provincial governments regarding the SC orders on repatriation of officers to their parent departments.
Different governmental departments often do not relieve officers who have repatriated by the Establishment division to their parent departments in pursuance of the order of SC passed on March 30, 2017, the letter stated.
The intent to retain these officers on one pretext or the other which is not only an administrative anomaly rather a violation of above-referred orders of the SC, letter further stated.
The competent authority has therefore taken a serious note of this matter and desired to inform that not relieving the officers within due time will be a violation on the part of the office concerned. In charge of the office will thus be liable to explain the position to SC in person and when required.
Sources told that few ministries including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are not implementing the court orders regarding the repatriation of officers to their parent department.
A number of blue-eyed politically influenced civil servants are absorbed against direct recruitment seats still serving in the ministry, sources further added that the decision of the apex court regarding repatriation of absorbed deputations to their parent department has been resisted by the administration of Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Recently, Secretary foreign affairs have defied the SC instructions by favouring blue-eyed officers to keep work in ministry.
Reference your petition dated 8/5/2018 addressed to the foreign secretary on the above-noted subject, it is informed that your petition has been examined in detail at the appropriate level and in view of the rules on the subject it has not been found tenable.
A number of government servants have also been absorbed to different Cadre of civil service especially the Office Management Group (OMG) and these officers have been working on different departments for years despite the fact an officer can remain on deputation maximum for five years.
Pakistan Today approached to of Foreign Office spokesperson regarding the FO secretary order but he did not give the answer till filing of story.
Earlier, SC had declared null and void the absorptions and out of turn promotions with backdated seniority and instructed the Establishment division to streamline service structure of civil servants in line with the principles laid down in the said judgment.
ED had issued office memorandums in January and February 2014 with a view to making it convenient for all concerned to implement the said judgment. Sources told that in this office memorandum, selected parts of the judgment were reproduced verbatim; this went contrary to established principles of reading the law as a whole and created ample room for misinterpretations.
The aforesaid scenario was brought to the notice of the PM through Ministry of Law while taking serious note of the aforesaid situation it has been observed by the PM that under article 189 and 190 of the constitution, every judgment of the SC is binding upon the executive.
Therefore, the practice of circulating judgment in bits and pieces should be discontinued in future, it was said.
Senate Secretariat has time and again asked for repatriation of absorbed deputationists but in vain.
It is pertinent to mention here that a committee was constituted for scrutiny of the absorption cases in FIA since 1994 in compliance of the judgment of the SC in June 2013, 2015 and 2016. The committee has recommended Assistant Directors Rana Ghulam Shabbir and Hamood ur Rehman mangal for their repatriation.