KARACHI: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) has directed Establishment Division to reframe the formula pertaining to the promotions of civil servants and ordered that the cases of employees of BS-21 for promotion to BS-22 be placed before the high powered selection board within one month.

“Civil servants, who have already been promoted on the basis of seniority and met the required threshold are concerned, shall retain their position, however in case petitioners are also promoted and vacancies are less, then senior amongst the officers will hold the position,” the court noted in its order pertaining to petition filed by several bureaucrats challenging the recently notified promotions.

The High Court in its order noted that the assessment of officers shall be made on the basis of entire performance and in case any tangible material asking question about integrity of civil servants is available, any opinion of deferment or suppression may be made but not on the basis of hypothesis and reputation in air.

The Court said that formula of award of 15 marks at the disposal of Central Selection Board (CSB) with overriding effect of 05 marks and thereby placing the civil servants in categories A,B,C is against the dictums laid down by Supreme Court.

The discretion of award of marks by the CSB cannot bring the ACRs/TERs evaluation into naught and CSB can only grant marks out of 15 at its discretion and marks of quantification to be added in making recommendations for promotion.

The Court declared the entire process carried out by CSB on the basis of formula introduced through Policy of 2012 as illegal.

An FBR official said that before the arrival of detailed judgment, there was confusion and it was rumored that the entire promotions had been dismissed.

“The Court has not dismissed the promotions, but cases of officers who were not promoted despite of seniority have been referred for reconsideration,” the official said.

The official added that there would be no impact on the upcoming transfers and postings in the Board.