Appointments in service tribunals challenged in K-P

Petitioner says can’t appoint officers who are subservient to an organisation they have to adjudge

PESHAWAR: The appointment of bureaucrats as members of the service tribunal was challenged on Monday with the petitioner contending that the move violated the Constitution.

A writ petition has been filed by lawyer Ali Azim Afridi in the Peshawar High Court (PHC), challenging Section 3 of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Service Tribunal Act 1974.

Afridi contended in his petition that the appointments of bureaucrats in the service tribunal were against the separation of powers between the three organs of state — the legislature, the executive and the judiciary — since the tribunal directly falls under the government’s influence and thus would not be able to give unbiased judgments in cases which are against the government.

The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Service Tribunals Act 1974, was enacted to provide for the establishment of service tribunals to exercise jurisdiction in respect of matters relating to the terms and conditions of services of civil servants of the province.

The law provides for the appointment of a chairman being a person, who is or has been, or is qualified to be a judge of the high court; and four members, two of whom shall be from among district and sessions judges and two among civil servants in basic pay scale (BPS) -20 and above; enabling the functionality of the tribunal.

“By allowing a civil servant to act as a member [of the] service tribunal may prove to be a fry-pan for the government,” claimed the petitioner. “As such promotion, itself is a double-edged weapon; either it may be used to influence a bureaucrat performing judicial functions or may face the wrath of the government.”

Afridi further added that the tribunal adjudicates upon issues, where the government and the executive is always a necessary party, allowing space for the provincial government to regulate and schematise, the terms and conditions of a bureaucrat in BPS-20, per se, impinges upon the notion of independence of Judiciary.

The petitioner urged the court to declare the appointment of civil servants as members of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Service Tribunal to be declared as ultra vires of the Constitution.

The K-P government through the chief secretary, ministries of law and parliamentary affairs are the respondents in the case, the service tribunal through its registrar, the PHC registrar and K-P governor are listed as respondents. 

Published in The Express Tribune, November 13^th, 2018.