Taking serious note of recently amended Civil Service of Pakistan Rules 1954 in violation of constitutional provisions and top court verdict that has an adverse impact on provincial civil servants career, Division Bench of the Peshawar High Court Wednesday sought reply from Center in the matter.
Appearing before the Bench of Justices Muhammad Nasir Mehfooz and Arshad Ali on Wednesday Umer Ijaz Gilani, the counsel for Farhatullah Khan Marwat, a senior officer of KPK Provincial Management Service, claimed that the federal government has secretively made an amendment to the Civil Service of Pakistan Rules, 1954 through Statutory Regulatory Order (SRO) 1046 of 2020.
Terming the impugned SRO as an assault on the scheme of administrative federalism laid down in the Constitution of 1973 and reinforced by the 18th Amendment the petitioner contended that the impugned notification has been issued purportedly in pursuance of the Federal Civil Servants Act, 1973.
Advocate Gilani further argued that the SRO travels beyond the mandate of the parent Act whose scope is confined to federal posts only, adding neither the Act nor the Constitution empowers the federal government to make any appointments to any provincial posts or to set rules for this purpose.
“Provincial posts are an exclusively provincial matter”, Gilani contended. Responding to query of the court the counsel submitted that through the SR0, the Establishment Division has effectively usurped for itself the right to periodically re-determine and possibly reduce the share of seats available to provincial civil servants in the upper echelons of the provincial bureaucracy.
During the course of proceedings, the petitioner asserted that through SRO 1046, the power to make appointments to numerous important provincial civil service posts has been taken away from Provincial Cabinets (acting as collegiate, deliberative) and handed over to the Prime Minister. He said this power can now be exercised behind closed doors, to the detriment of a provincial civil servant like the petitioner.
Counsel for the petitioner argued that the SRO seeks to defeat the spirit of the Supreme Court’s landmark judgment in Mustafa Impex case.
Pertinently mention that while announcing the verdict on 18th August 2016, the top court had expanded meaning and scope of the federal government while referring cabinet form of government, using the language of Article 90 of the Constitution saying in the capacity of the Chief Executive of the country, the Prime Minister ‘executes policy decisions, but does not take them by himself’. The top court held that the Prime Minister could not move any legislation, finance or fiscal bill, or approve any budgetary or discretionary expenditure, without consulting and obtaining approval from the Cabinet. After hearing preliminary arguments, the PHC accepted the plea for hearing and issued notices to Secretary Establishment and Secretary Law.
Talking to TLTP, Advocate Gilani expressed, “The SRO 1046 militates against the entire scheme of our Constitution which is based on the principle of provincial autonomy and administrative federalism.
