KARACHI: The supreme Court of Pakistan has suspended the recent Central Selection Board (CSB) 2015 meeting and its recommendations thereof, which means the officers who were deferred or superseded for no apparent reason would be taken up for promotion again.
The Supreme Court of Pakistan has ordered Establishment Division to place all promotion cases of 2015 before the central selection board afresh after withdrawing the overriding effect of five marks assigned for integrity and reputation etc.
The apex court has also ordered to remove the deviation of the focus of CSB from the service dossier to the personal knowledge of its members.
The Court has ordered that the revised CSB should be completed and concluded within 10 weeks from April 13, 2017.
In the meanwhile, those who may have been promoted by the recent CSB will maintain their elevated positions. However, officers whose cases for promotion were recommended to be deferred or superseded, are through the proposed process recommended for promotion, they shall maintain their seniority so that their seniority and prospects of their future promotion are not adversely affected.
There is a extreme sense of uncertainty among the civil servants as court’s decision regarding CSB meeting 2016 is expected to come soon.
In its decision, apex court notes officers who achieved the prescribed threshold on the basis of their PERs and TERs, but have been superseded on the basis of knowledge of the board’s members, but neither has any reason given for ignoring the quantification in the service record nor the nature and/or source of the so called knowledge been disclosed.
Since it has not even been stated as to what came to the knowledge of the members (and to which of them) so as to persuade them to override the evaluation on the basis of the service dossier of the officer covering the entire spectrum of his performance and conduct, spread over long years of his service, and recommend his supersession in the face of his meeting the prescribed criteria otherwise, and therefore neither was the board in a position to disclose or convey to the effectee any ground/reason for the predicament, and thus the process not only violated the requirement of adequote disclosure, but also offended the principle of fairness, due process and procedural propriety.
The court notes the matter of promotion, deferment or supersession of civil servant and that too of BPS-20 and 21, is of enormous significance having a bearing on the state structure and cannot be left to be dealt with arbitrary, casual and capricious manner.