FCC upholds seniority of regular staff

Blocks retrospective regularisation in service dispute

ISLAMABAD:

The Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) has reinforced the constitutional protection of regularly recruited public servants and restrained arbitrary administrative actions affecting seniority in public institutions.

The court has categorically held that contractual service cannot be retrospectively regularised in a manner that prejudices or overrides the vested seniority rights of permanently appointed employees. The judgment was delivered by a two-member bench comprising Justice Syed Hasan Azhar Rizvi and Justice MuhammadKarim Khan Agha.

The bench had reserved the order on March 26, 2026, following proceedings; it announced the detailed judgment in Karachi. Justice Syed Hasan Azhar Rizvi authored the court's opinion.

Allowing the appeal filed by Muhammad Qutub-ud-Din and other regularly appointed officers in relation to a seniority dispute, the court declared unlawful the impugned judgment of the Sindh High Court as well as the disputed executive orders issued by the Sindh Employees' Social Security Institution (Sessi).

It directed Sessi to issue a fresh and lawful seniority list within sixty days, placing the appellants above the private respondent in accordance with law.

In its judgment, the court unequivocally observed that an employee serving on a contractual basis remains outside the regular cadre until lawful regularisation and, therefore, does not acquire any vested right to claim backdated seniority from the date of contractual induction.

The FCC emphasized that seniority rights accrued by regularly inducted employees through prescribed competitive and codal procedures constitute vested legal rights that cannot be disturbed indirectly through administrative mechanisms, committee recommendations, or retrospective executive actions.

It clarified that constitutional jurisdiction under Article 199 of the Constitution is fully maintainable against statutory bodies performing public functions when their administrative actions are arbitrary, discriminatory, or contrary to their own service regulations. This is irrespective of whether such regulations are statutory or non-statutory in character.

Rejecting the contention that such matters fall exclusively within the domain of the traditional "master and servant" doctrine, it reaffirmed the constitutional obligation of public institutions to act fairly, lawfully, and within the bounds of their governing framework.

Addressing the issue of alternate remedies, the court held that the principle requiring exhaustion of departmental or administrative remedies before invoking constitutional jurisdiction is not an inflexible statutory prohibition.

It is rather a rule of judicial prudence, policy, and convenience, which cannot bar constitutional intervention in cases involving manifest illegality or arbitrary exercise of authority.