The race to 21: Court sets aside promotions

Petitioners claim officers close to PM, Punjab CM influenced CSB recommendations.

ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court on Monday set aside recent promotions of bureaucrats to grade-21, directing the Establishment Division to work out a new formula and reinitiate the process in 30 days.

Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui heard identical petitions filed by over 50 bureaucrats against recommendations of the Central Selection Board (CSB).

The petitioners maintained that the promotions were made on a pick-and- choose basis rather than on merit. They argued that even the pendency of disciplinary proceedings against them did not debar the CSB from considering them for promotion.

They also claimed that 19 out of the 62 officers promoted were batchmates of an officer in the PM Secretariat, who they said is close to the premier and also among the promotees.

They said for 73 vacant posts in the Pakistan Administrative Service (PAS) and the District Management Group (DMG), 62 officers were chosen from the list of 132 provided by the Establishment Division. The remaining 11 promotees, petitioners claimed, was principal secretary Tauqeer Shah and his batchmates.

The CSB had to evaluate officers against performance evaluation reports (PERs) and training evaluation reports and the minimum threshold for the promotion was 75 marks.

However, the board had discretionary 15 marks, and in some cases 24. Petitioners maintained that these discretionary marks were used to give the aggregate 75 marks to some of the low-scoring officers, “while others who had genuine 75 plus marks from their service records were ignored for promotion”.

Promotion of some officers was deferred with an excuse to observe their performance for six months or a year despite the fact that their PERs had shown excellent records throughout and they had 75 plus marks based on their general performance, the petitioners claimed.

They also said that officials working on senior positions in the PM Secretariat gave a list of the officers who were to be promoted to CSB.

Previously, Additional Attorney General Afnan Karim Kundi had argued that the court cannot review the decision, adding that the prime minister decides on promotions after the CSB finalises names.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 28^th, 2015.