Vacant slot: Services Tribunal not working for two weeks

Saeed Akhtar relinquished charge as PST chairperson on January 1.

LAHORE: The Punjab Services Tribunal (PST) has been dysfunctional since the retirement of its chairperson on January 1. Around 6,500 appeals filed by public servants have been lying pending with the tribunal.

Requesting anonymity, a department official told The Express Tribune that Muhammad Saeed Akhtar had relinquished charge on the expiry of his three-year tenure. “Another post of a member has been lying vacant for the past three months,” he said.

The PST was established under Punjab Services Tribunal Act, amended in 2013. The tribunal comprises six members and a chairman. It has exclusive jurisdiction over matters relating to the terms and conditions of government service in the province. Government servants can file appeals against orders of their administrative heads. A retired judge or a person qualified to be a judge of the high court and less than 63 years of age is eligible for the post of chairman. On the recommendation of the high court, the government can appoint a district judge or secretary as member of the tribunal.

“Under the law, members of the tribunal cannot perform their duties if the chairperson’s post is vacant,” a member of the tribunal, who did not wish to be named, said.

“The tribunal had written a letter to the additional chief secretary on January 2 for the appointment of a regular chairperson. It had also suggested that the additional charge of chairperson be entrusted to any member to ensure that the tribunal kept functioning. No response has been received yet,” he said.

“The chairperson is the only authority to assign newly-instituted appeals, transfer appeals and to constitute a double bench or a full bench. He has judicial authority over the functions of the PST. The chairperson is also the principal accounting officer of the tribunal. He is the authority to re-appropriate funds from one head of account to another and to sanction expenditure from within the budget allocated to the tribunal. In the absence of the chairperson, the work done by other members might be treated as illegal,” he said.

The appeals filed by various officers against termination, dismissal, forfeit of service, etc, are piling up. “The tribunal had no member during May to December 2014 and only the chairperson was hearing the appeals,” he said.

When contacted, Additional Chief Secretary Mubashar Raza refused to comment.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 21^st, 2015.