Forest officials’ hiring annulled
The Sindh High Court (SHC) has declared on Thursday that the appointments of seven Assistant Conservators of Forest (BPS-17) through Sindh Public Service Commission illegal because only two vacancies for the said posts were advertised by the employing department.
In a detailed judgment on a petition by the candidates who were denied appointment on the same posts due to alleged corruption and nepotism, the commission was asked to re-advertise the posts and allow anew participation of the aspiring candidates.
“The government of Sindh is directed to take stock of the functioning of the SPSC and take appropriate measures to save the public at large from the irony of SPSC,” the order reads. Mustafa Saeed and other petitioners, who are working on BPS-16 posts of Forest Range officers, through their counsel advocate Ghulam Sarwar Baloch pleaded before the court that the SPSC had announced two vacancies on July 13, 2020, but increased the number to seven without a renewed advertisement.
Initially both seats were on urban quota but on September 8, 2020, the commission issued an addendum splitting the two seats in one urban and rural each. On October 27, 2020, the department wrote a letter to the SPSC to increase the seats. The court noted that without following the law which requires renewed advertisement with the increased number of the posts the commission went ahead with the recruitment.
In 2019 the SPSC had announced a stipendiary course for MSc Forestry from Pakistan Forest Institute, Peshawar. The candidates who were eligible to apply for the BPS-17 posts were supposed to complete their course. On April 5, 2021, the results were announced with 28 candidates, including the petitioners, passing the written test. The interviews of the successful candidates were conducted immediately after the announcement and on April 13 a press release was issued declaring names of the seven qualifying candidates.”... marks of the written tests and the result of interviews have not been publicly displayed by the SPSC and only the number of the successful candidates were declared,” the lawyer said. He also maintained that two of the appointed officials were relatives of the commission’s officials while one was a son of a former secretary of the SPSC. One more SPSC recruited official allegedly came up with the recommendation of the provincial forest minister.
“Unfortunately, the commission, prima facie, acted hand in gloves with the [forest and wildlife] department,” the Hyderabad circuit bench observed. Besides increasing the number of seats and creating posts for rural, the commission also relaxed the age limit by 15 years. “These glaring illegalities on part of the respondent [commission], which are apparent on the face of the record, can’t be condoned under the law,” the order reads.
The court gave two months to the SPSC to advertise the enhanced number of posts and conduct the recruitment process again.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 25th, 2021.