New rules: Post of deputy registrar be open only to assistant registrars, LHC committee suggests

‘If judges can get administrative posts, why can’t private secretaries and court associates?’.

LAHORE: Lahore High Court’s administration is mulling over keeping promotions to the post of deputy registrar (in BS 19) open only for assistant registrars (in BS 18). This will bar other potential candidates in BS 18, private secretaries and court associates, from being promoted to the post of deputy registrar. 

According to rules, private secretaries, court associates and assistant registrars are promoted to deputy registrar on rotation.

The recommendations were given by a subcommittee,headed by Justice Ijazul Ahsan, to the administration committee of the LHC for approval. The eight-page recommendation (a copy is available with The Express Tribune) carries the signatures of Justice Ahsan and Judge Khaqan Babar.

The committee recommended promoting private secretaries and court associates (in BS 18) to senior private secretary and senior court associate in BS 19 upon completion of 12 years satisfactory service. LHC officials in BS 17 could be promoted to senior personal assistant in BS 18 upon completion of seven years satisfactory service. However, senior private secretaries and senior court associates will not be entitled to perks allowed to deputy registrars unless granted by a competent authority. The perks include conveyance and office or residential telephone service, among others. The committee explained that the job description and nature of service of private secretaries and court associates was different from that of assistant registrars and deputy registrars. They said personal assistants,private secretaries and court associates helped regulate court affairs and typed judgements. Their skills could be better utilised if they continued working in their existing posts. The recommendation suggests that since personal assistants private secretaries and court associates would be granted time-scale promotions, they could be barred from being promoted to the post of deputy registrar.

Several private secretaries and court associates have expressed reservations over these recommendations.

They said it was a violation of Articles 4 and 25 of the Constitution.

Requesting anonymity, a court associate said that assistant registrars only worked till 4pm while personal assistants private secretaries and court associates remained at the LHC till sunset and sometimes worked well into the night. He said promotion to the post of deputy registrar allowed them the luxury of a less hectic work schedule.

He said court assistants not only dealt with judges but also the court administration, lawyers and litigants.

He said their duties were thrice as much that of assistant registrars’, “but now our years of service will mean nothing”.

Another court assistant said they had to clear five exams of a judicial course to be appointed court assistants. Assistant registrars have no such requirement, he said.

He said a session judge is always appointed as a registrar while the post of deputy registrar is an administrative one. “If us officials with experience in judicial service can’t be promoted to an administrative post (deputy registrar) then why is a sessions judge, who has only judicial service experience, made registrar?”

He said there were other administrative posts including member inspection team (MIT), additional MITs, district and sessions judge establishment to which judges were appointed.

“They don’t have any administrative experience…why are they given administrative posts?”

Published in The Express Tribune, March 19^th, 2015.