The back door to a government job

On March 14, 2005, Pakistan Television Corporation (PTV) placed an advertisement, seeking applications for a few positions on a two-year contract, extendable for another three years. After due process, recruitment was completed. The advertisement and the job offer both explicitly stated that these were contractual positions and not permanent, meaning that these jobs would be terminated in a maximum of five years.

However, in 2009, various groups of these contractual employees filed four separate constitutional petitions to the Supreme Court, seeking regularisation of their service.

In three of the petitions, the Court referred the matter back to PTV for consideration as per rules and regulations applicable to contractual employees.

But in the fourth petition, the petitioners wrongfully claimed that they were not contractual employees and were instead recruited on probation against permanent positions. Accordingly, the court directed the PTV to make them permanent if their claim had indeed been valid. (Kasi Judgment 2011). Interestingly PTV did not challenge this misrepresentation then. Instead, the PTV board approved a regularisation policy, under which all four groups were regularised.

Ironically, the petitioners of the fourth group were still unhappy. They wanted their benefits all the way back from 2006 and filed yet another petition in Islamabad High Court. The IHC, looking at the Kasi judgment, ordered regularisation of their service from the date of initial appointment i.e. 2006 and PTV complied.

Encouraged by this development, many other newly regularised and contractual employees went to the Balochistan High Court. They too sought backdated regularisation on the basis that they were identical to beneficiaries of the Kasi judgment. The BHC declared that all such contractual employees should be regularised with backdated benefits.

Numerous other petitions were then filed on similar grounds. It seemed that the Kasi judgment had opened a floodgate of litigation, with financial cost of backdated regularisation to PTV running in billions.

The PTV finally woke up to the reality and went back to the Supreme Court in 2015. The top court after looking at the facts clarified that contract employees were not entitled to backdated regularisation and the Kasi judgment should only apply to regular employees on probation. This decision finally corrected the more-than-a-decade old mistake. The appeals on the case, however, still continue. This is one of countless such stories, haunting the government ministries and public-sector corporations for decades.

In Pakistan, a permanent government job is a prized possession, providing salaries, perks and pension benefits, without any performance pressure. But finding a government job isn’t easy. Over the years, however, people have found a backdoor. They find a contractual job, which is easier to land, and then use political connections, exploitation and favourable decisions by tribunals and courts, to convert it into a permanent position, often in cohorts with public officials. The result is unrestrained growth of the public-sector workforce and mounting pay and pension liabilities.

But things have been changing lately.

The 2018 SC decision on PTV was not an exception. In another case regarding Food Department employees in Punjab, the SC overruled the earlier decision of the Services Tribunal and clarified that regularisation couldn’t be from an earlier date. Similarly, in a case relating to Livestock Department Punjab, the SC recently acknowledged the unsustainable financial burden of salary and pension under regular appointments and ruled that contract appointments do not confer any right of regular appointment. The court also emphasised that contract employees should under no circumstances claim conversion to a regular appointment (unless there is a clear policy).

Thanks to recent SC decisions, it appears that this back door to government employment is gradually being shut.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 20^th, 2021.

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