Establishment Division flouting apex court orders on officers’ repatriation

ISLAMABAD: While instructing other departments to implement the Supreme Court’s (SC) order regarding repatriation of officers to their parent departments, the Establishment Division (ED) observed silence over the matter of deputations serving in the human resource (HR) management department.

The Establishment Division had instructed ministries, divisions, departments and provincial governments to implement the SC’s orders regarding the repatriation of officers to their parents’ departments last month, however, it is itself violating the orders of the apex court as Ejaz Ahmed and Shaukat Ali Khan are still working on key posts.

SC in its order dated March 30, 2017, ordered that: ”Officers brought on deputation shall be repatriated to their parent departments within four months and the appointments made by transfer shall be reviewed to bring it in line with aforementioned judgments”.

While implementing the SC orders, the ED had filed an Intra Court Appeal (ICA) which was dismissed and then a review petition had also been dismissed by the apex court.

Sources told that the Establishment Division constrained itself to implement consent order on the pretext of ICA’s and review despite there being no stay order.

“The officers were thinking that the country’s bureaucracy will stop illegal absorption and frivolous deputations after this decision but the induction of non-civil servants could not be stopped,” said sources.

“The people in power used this tool to induct their near and dear ones on top positions in the bureaucracy without passing the Central Superior Services (CSS) examination. The case of Shaukat Ali is proof of this as the latter is the brother of former PAS office Mumtaz Ali Khan who is the batchmate of Fawad Hasan Fawad as well.

Similarly, another blue-eyed inductee is Qaisar Khattak who was initially an employee of Bait-ul-Maal and is presently in the Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP). He was transferred on deputation in 2009 in ED as his father was the senior joint secretary there.

It is pertinent to mention here that a number of people from Office Management Group (OMG) went to the Islamabad High Court (IHC) after which the order of induction of above mentioned two officers was reversed.

“Article 189 of the constitution bounds the executive to implement orders of the judiciary, however, for ED it seems that the SC’s order is a dead letter,” sources stated.

Sources further said that all inductions done in OMG are against criterion and judgments of apex courts were for PAS as well as, other groups.

Presently, there are 14 occupational groups out of which aspirants of 12 groups are recruited through CSS and OMG is one of these 12 groups.

Initially, there was no concept of government officials’ appointment by transfer in OMG, however, it was added through an amendment in 1979 in order to favour blue-eyed and incompetent persons.

“If appointments by transfer are inevitable then why had this not been implemented in other groups of bureaucracy,” sources said while further adding that such types of appointments are ruining the basic structure of civil service.

The Pakistan Muslim Lague-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) governments were pursuing a policy to induct maximum non-cadre officers, generally teachers, veterinary doctors in regular service cadre of OMG. The provincial secretariat officer can be posted in the federal secretariat against 10 per cent posts reserved for appointments by transfer.

The Senate standing committee on Cabinet in the last week also showed concern regarding the number of officers over-staying their period of deputation. Joint Secretary Musaddiq Ahmed Khan was of the view that in order to determine reasons for an extension, it is imperative that each case is studied minutely.

Upon this, and the committee chairman directed ED officials to give the complete list of officers violating the law.