Favourable judgment: SC orders action against 2 FST members

Judges observe a retired official was given benefits out of the way

ISLAMABAD:

The Supreme Court has directed the federal government to initiate proceedings against two members of the Federal Service Tribunal (FST) for giving a favourable verdict to a retired Senate official.

A two-judge bench comprising justices Ijaz Ahmed Chaudhry and Mushir Alam has issued the order on an appeal filed by the Senate of Pakistan.

The FST had allowed granting pensioner’s benefits to Shahiq Ahmad Khan, who retired as a Senate additional secretary – a Grade-21 position – on October 21, 2010,

Shahiq was working as a director in the National Construction Limited (NCL) when his on-deputation services were requisitioned as the director-general (BS-20) of Senate’s Public Relations Department.

He started working on the position at the Senate Secretariat on September 29, 2003. A notification issued on October 20, 2004 allowed continuing his services at his parent department towards his seniority in the Senate. On November 18, 2005, he was appointed as additional secretary.

On March 10, 2011, however, the Senate withdrew the October 2004 notification while his departmental appeal was also rejected on October 26, 2013. Shahiq approached the FST against the rejection of his plea by the appellate authority.

On November 6 last year, the tribunal while setting aside the appellate authority’s order directed the Senate chairman to grant pensioner’s benefits to the plaintiff. But the Senate, through its chairman, also challenged the FST order before the apex court.

Now the Supreme Court in its eight-page judgment set aside the tribunal’s verdict, terming its observations ‘perverse and based on misreading of the record’.

The judges have directed the FST chairman to hand over the appeal to a bench in Islamabad for decision within three months.

The order states the FST members were not justified in invoking the principle of ‘locus poenitentiae’ and passed the order in a perfunctory manner. The observations on the conduct of the tribunal members will be given to the relevant authorities and also put before the chief justice of Pakistan for necessary action.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 17^th, 2016.