KARACHI: Despite Islamabad High Court’s order and Chairman FBR’s recommendation for proposed up-gradation of Principal Appraiser, Superintendent Customs and Superintendent Preventive from BPS-16 to BPS-17; the proposal is not being considered and is pending with the Establishment Division for the last six months.
“The Finance Minister may ascertain the cause of inordinate delay and mitigate the discrimination to the said cadre for redressal of the situation.
According to details, the non-CSS executive cadre’s posts in Customs consist of three main streams i.e. Appraisement cadre, Preventive cadre and Land Customs cadre. Each cadre comprises three tier hierarchies with the upper positions of Principal Appraiser, Superintendent (Preventive) and Superintendent Customs, respectively.
All the above three upper positions fall in BPS-16 from the very beginning of Customs history and never up-graded. The only promotional path for the incumbents of these cadres is their promotion against 25 percent posts of Assistant Collector (BS-17) in the Pakistan Customs Service.
In the recent past, various posts in lower hierarchy in above three streams were up-graded to BPS-16 with the approval of the former Prime Minister, after obtaining concurrence of the Establishment Division and the Finance Division.
This up-gradation has created an anomalous situation because the pay scales of two subordinate posts in each hierarchy have been brought at par with the top positions in same hierarchies. Resultantly the incumbent BS-16 officials in the hierarchy i.e. Principal Appraisers, Superintendent (Preventive) and Superintendent Customs also demanded for their one step up-gradation to BS-17 and ultimately filed Writ Petitions in the High Courts of Islamabad and Peshawar. The Islamabad High Court vide its judgment directed to consider their up-gradation.
Principal appraiser Shafiullah SVP of Appraising Officers Association, General Secretary Raja Wasim, Principal Mohammad Ibrahim Khan and Appraising Officer Rashid Khanzada have been running pillar to post for the proposed up-gradation. But the Establishment Division is sitting on the case.