Fate of 800 bureaucrats to be decided from Jan 9 to 12

FPSC chairperson Naveed Cheema will chair session

ISLAMABAD: The Establishment Division is all set to hold the Central Selection Board (CSB) meetings from January 9 to 12 to consider the promotions of around 800 bureaucrats in grades 20 and 21.

The CSB —comprising 18 officers, including chief secretaries, IGs and two politicians — recommends promotions from Grade 19 to Grade 20 and from Grade 20 to Grade 21.

This time it will be interesting as another policy was announced on December 27 under which trainings will be given more weight in evaluation reports.



Under the new criteria, the Establishment Division has increased the marks from 15 to 35 for Training Evaluation Report (TER), and decreased the marks from 70 to 50 for Performance Evaluation Report.

According to reliable sources, there are about 800 civil servants that are being considered for the promotion.

Federal Public Service Commission chairperson Naveed Akram Cheema will chair the meeting along with member of the National Assembly Amir Haider Khan, Senator Saud Majeed, establishment secretary Maroof Afzal and chief secretaries and inspectors general of the four provinces, according to a notification of the Establishment Division.

For the first time a senior member of the Intelligence Bureau will also sit in the CSB meetings. Three members of the Pakistan Administrative Service will also be attending. It will also be the first time that reports of IB will not be considered in the CSB meetings as was being done in the past. The decision was withdrawn last year in line with a notification from the Prime Minister Office.



It is the fourth revision of the promotion criteria during the tenure of the incumbent government as litigation in local courts has been the major reason for the revision.  Currently, over 400 cases are pending in different courts.

The new memorandum is the sixth such memo since 2011. The previous CSBs – held in 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017– were all mired in controversy, mainly featuring allegations of promoting political loyalists.

About 24 petitions have already been filed against last year’s promotion board in the Supreme Court in which many civil servants are those who have been continuously “ignored for no reason”.

Recently, a standing committee, specially formed to review the Civil Servants Act, has vowed to formulate a comprehensive policy to make it part of the Constitution to end the fiasco once and for all.

A policy, if formulated, can impact thousands of civil servants across the country but making it part of the Constitution means that the government will have to bring it before parliament for amendment, making it impossible for governments to use bureaucracy to their advantage.

The committee had also questioned that why was there the need to hold CSB meetings when it is known as a “governments’ tool to promote blue-eyed civil servants”.

The last CSB meeting was convened in December 2015 after the apex court directed the Establishment Division to reconsider the cases of eligible officers superseded or ignored in the same huddle. As per the bylaws, the CSB has to convene meetings at least thrice a year.