This petition for leave to appeal has been addressed against a judgment recorded by a learned single Judge of the High Court on 6.4.2009 in Writ Petition No. 123 of 2008, whereby the writ petition filed by the respondent, herein, has been accepted.
2. The facts of the case in short are that Respondent No. 1, who is an Inspector serving with the Prosecution Branch of Police Department of Azad Jammu & Kashmir, acquired LL.B. degree and also completed Shariah course during his service. The petitioner, in the light of this new development, applied for grant of two advance increments admissible to the employees of grade B 1 to B-16 serving with the organization either dispensing justice or directly working for dispensation of justice, on the basis of additional qualification in view of an amended Notification No. FD/R/1/532/2000, dated 8.1.2001 but his claim was not accepted. Finally he filed a writ petition before the High Court which culminated into the impugned order.
3. It has been submitted by the learned Advocate-General that the learned Judge of the High Court has wrongly interpreted the law and rules on the subject and that the impugned judgment is erroneous one, which is not maintainable under law as according to the Finance Department's Letter No. FD/R/1/532/2008, dated 8.1.2001, it has categorically been mentioned that two advance increments are only admissibly to the officials of grade B-1 to B-16 who are serving with the organizations either dispensing justice or directly connected with the work of dispensing justice. He added that the increments are only admissible to those civil servants who are working in the Courts dispensing justice like the Supreme Court, High Courts, Special Courts, Banking Courts, Federal Service Tribunal, Federal Ombudsman etc whereas Respondent No. 1 is serving with the Police Department, not with any of the Court. The learned Advocate-General also submitted that since the jurisdiction of High Court is ousted in respect of service matters, the respondent being civil servant couldn't invoke the jurisdiction of High Court.
4. Conversely it has been submitted by Kh. Muhammad Maqbool War, the learned counsel appearing for Respondent No. 1, that the Police Officers or other employees of the Police Department, who are working with the Prosecution Branch of the Department, are not covered by the referred Letter of the Finance Department, whereby the increments have been denied to the Police employees. The learned counsel also contended that the judgment recorded by the High Court is correct which is based upon cogent and valid reasons and has been delivered after discussing in detail the law on the subject. According to the learned counsel, the learned Judge of the High Court has not committed any illegality while interpreting law and rules rather the learned Judge has interpreted the terminologies precisely and accurately, which doesn't require any interference 'by this Court. The learned counsel also submitted that withholding of grant of advance increments would amount to discriminate the respondent as the same have been granted to certain other employees of the Police Department on the direction of this Court. The learned counsel prayed for dismissal of the petition for leave to appeal.
5. After going through the record of the case in the light of arguments advanced at Bar by the learned counsel for the parties I am of the considered view that the moot point in the case is one which has authoritatively been resolved in a judgment recorded by the division bench of this Court on 10.11.2006 in Civil Appeal No. 99/2005, tilted Secretary Finance & 2 others vs. Anees-ul-Arfeen. In this case while discussing in detail the legal authorities reported as Muhammad Ashraf vs. Govt. of Punjab through Secretary Finance Deptt. & 2 others [2002 PLC (CS) 873], Azad Govt. & others vs. Dr. Latafat Ameen & others [2006 SCR 116] and an unreported case titled Muhammad Anwar Nasir vs. Accountant General & others decided on 5.5.2006 in Civil Appeal No. 4/2005, this Court opined as under:-- " We have no doubt in our mind that the Police which dispenses Department is not an organization justice. Obviously the term and expression "organizations which are either dispensing justice" doesn't include the Police Department and detail is not required to hold that it refers to the employees of the Courts and Tribunals but as far the term and expression "directly connected with the working of dispensing justice" is concerned, it needs consideration at least to the extent of the Prosecution branch of the Police Department. In our view the employees of the Prosecution branch of the Police Department are, no doubt, covered by the second part of the notification dated 08.1.2001 as according to the wording of the notification the employees who are working in the organizations" means and includes all the Courts and Tribunals. It has no where been provided that permanent employees of all the Courts are only covered by this expression. It is sufficient to prove that the incumbent is working in any Court irrespective of the fact whether he is permanent employee, of that Court or not. Therefore, we hold that an official of the Police, who may be the permanent employee of the Prosecution branch of the Police Department, is a person who is working in the Courts/Organizations, which are either dispensing justice or connected with the working of dispensing justice."
It was also held in Para 6 of the above-referred judgment as under:-- "6. We are of the view that the appeal merits dismissal on the simple ground that even if each of the above referred policies are read separately altogether the moot point is the same as to whether the respondent is or at the relevant time was entitled to two advance increments on the basis of additional qualification of LL.B. The wording used in the first notification dated 08.1.2001 clearly provides that the "organization" means and includes Courts or Tribunals dispensing justice but the expression "who are working in" doesn't mean the permanent employees of that organization, because a civil servant of any other department may be ordered to work in a Court, Tribunal, Ombudsman Secretariat or Election Commission whatsoever. It is even otherwise discretionary on the part of the appellants to grant the additional increments to one employee and refuse the same to the other and in fact the main plank of the arguments of the respondent in the Service Tribunal was that Maqsood Ahmed Khan who was also a permanent employee was granted two advance increments on the basis of additional qualification but the same were refused to him."
A perusal of the impugned judgment reveals that the learned Judge of the High Court has also relied upon the judgment recorded in Anees-ul-Arfeen case (supra) and has accepted the writ petition filed by the respondent, herein. The impugned judgment doesn't suffer from any illegality or irregularity, which doesn't need any interference by this Court, hence finding no force in this petition for leave to appeal, the same is dismissed with no order as to costs.