Controversial move: Judicial accademy head gets eight-month extension

Fakhar Hayat has been working on contract in the academy for nearly a decade

ISLAMABAD: Federal Judicial Academy (FJA) Director-General (DG) Fakhar Hayat has got another extension of eight months after his contract expired last week, sources in the academy told The Express Tribune on Monday.

A retired sessions judge, Hayat has been working on contract in the academy for nearly a decade. At present, the FJA DG -- a grade 22 post -- is earning around Rs400,000 per month along with additional perks and privileges.

Moreover, a senior FJA official revealed that the academy’s permanent employees are being deprived of their service promotions because there exists no service rules.

On October 6, 2010, around 60 employees of the academy wrote a letter to former chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, complaining that there were no rules for promotions to the next grade in the academy.

In a five-page letter to the FJA chairman, they had requested him that service rules for the employees should be framed with the setting up of a promotion board. However FJA’s administration failed to finalise service rules for the academy’s employees.

The official said the top brass of the academy is working on contracts; therefore, they are not taking any interest in framing promotion rules for the employees.

In December 2010, former CJP Iftikhar Chaudhry, being chairman of the board of governors of the FJA, had directed to frame the rules. Likewise, former law minister Babar Awan had made a suggestion that appointment, promotion and transfer rules for the post of director-general should be made.

On March 1, Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali again issued directives to draft standardised employees services rules for the FJA.

A senior official told The Express Tribune that despite the passage of four months, no progress has been made with regard to the finalisation of the FJA employees’ service rules, .

However, Pakistan Bar Council executive member Shoaib Shaheen, while talking to The Express Tribune, has opposed the appointment of retired judges in the academy.

He said when the superior judiciary condemns the appointment of officers on deputation in other departments it should not adopt the same practice.

An SC official stated that permanent employees are getting frustrated over such appointments.

“If we are incompetent then what the administration has done to make us efficient or whether any course is being arranged to improve the capability of permanent employees,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 16^th, 2016.