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ISLAMABAD:
The Supreme Court has ruled that promotion is a natural and integral incident of civil service and that every eligible civil servant has a legitimate expectation to be considered for advancement within a reasonable timeframe.
The court also held that administrative inefficiency, poor governance or inaction could not be used to deny lawful service rights, as it restored the promotion of a civil servant from the date of the first Departmental Promotion Committee (DPC) meeting held in 2012.
A three-member bench comprising Justice Ayesha A Malik, Justice Muhammad Hashim Khan Kakar and Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim allowed the civil petition of Fakhar Majeed, a draftsman at the Punjab Irrigation Department, setting aside a February 16, 2024 order of the Punjab Service Tribunal which had dismissed his appeal.
The court declared that the petitioner would be deemed to have been promoted to the post of draftsman (BPS-14) with effect from January 21, 2012.
The verdict was authored by Justice Ayesha A Malik and spans seven pages. The bench converted the civil petition into an appeal and allowed it, holding that the tribunal had failed to appreciate the unjustified deprivation of the petitioner’s promotion despite his eligibility.
Fakhar Majeed was appointed to the Punjab Irrigation Department in October 1999.
According to the record, he was assigned the duties of draftsman on a current charge basis from December 2008 onward under Rule 10(b) of the Punjab Civil Servants (Appointment & Conditions of Service) Rules, 1974.
He continued to perform the duties of the higher post for several years through repeated extensions, before being formally promoted in May 2019 following a DPC meeting held on May 4, 2019.
The petitioner contended that he had become eligible for regular promotion as early as 2010 when vacancies were available and that his case should have been considered at the first DPC convened in January 2012. However, his case was not placed before the committee, and no explanation was provided for this omission.
The Punjab government defended the tribunal’s decision by relying on Section 8(3) of the Punjab Civil Servants Act, 1974, arguing that promotion could only be granted with immediate effect and not from the date of availability of a vacancy.
The assistant advocate general maintained that promotion was not a vested right and that retrospective promotion was barred by law.
Rejecting this argument, the Supreme Court observed that the facts of the case did not fall within the scope of Section 8(3), as the petitioner had been continuously holding the post on a current charge basis since 2008.
