' S. ABDUL JABBAR KHAN (CHAIRMAN).-Muzaffar Hussain Kazmi has filed this appeal under section 4 of the Punjab Service Tribunals Act, 1974, in which he has impleaded the Secretary, S. & G.A.D. And Respondents Nos, 2 to 63 as Respondents.
2. By virtue of this appeal he has prayed that the appeal be accepted and impugned seniority list and final order, dated 23rd July, 1981 be set aside. It has also been prayed that respondent No, I may be directed to determine appellant's seniority as E.A.C. From 19th October, 1965 with all back benefits.
3. Brief facts of the case are that the High Powered Selection Board was constituted which was presided over by late Mr. I.U. Khan, Senior Member, Board of Revenue, the then Chief Secretary, Additional Chief Secretary, Home Secretary, Finance Secretary and all Members of the Board of Revenue. This High Powered Board interviewed a large number of candidates for selection to be placed on select list B from amongst the ministerial staff of the Secretariat and Attached Departments under rule 5 of the P.C.S. (E.B.) Rules, 1964. The appellant was selected for the said list.
Consequently the appellant was promoted to the P.C.S. (E.B.) alongwith other persons on ad hoc basis and joined service on 19th October, 1965. Later on the appellant was required for interview by the West Pakistan Public Service Commission for regularization of his appointment. The Public Service Commission did not approve the appellant as such and recommended to Government accordingly. The Government once again made an effort to persuade the Public Service Commission to accord its approval but the said Commission stuck to its earlier view. However, Public Service Commission agreed some time in the middle of 1968 and appellant was regularly appointed to the P.C.S. (E.B.) vide notification, dated 4th September, 1968 and the appellant took over his assignment on 12th September, 1968. When the seniority list was published the appellant was shown at serial No, 70 on the basis of his date of continuous appointment from 4th September, 1968. He contested the same by making representation to Government. It is on the record that the appellant went on making representation after representations from 1st December, 1968 to 15th June, 1981. According to rue appellant he received a final reply on 30th July, 1981 which did not accept his plea of seniority therefore, he filed this appeal before this Tribunal.
4. We have heard the learned counsel for the appellant as well as learned District Attorney assisted by the representative of the Department as well as Ch. Mushtaq Masud, learned counsel for the respondents and have perused the record of this case carefully with their assistance. The main and basic ground so pleaded before us on behalf of the appellant is, that the date of continuous appointment would be 9th October, 1965 as such he would be entitled to the seniority from this date. Although the learned counsel has accepted that his initial posting was on ad hoc basis yet he has challenged the desirability of his approval by the Public Service Commission, as according to the learned counsel for the appellant, at the relevant time there was no such rules which made it mandatory that the ad hoc appointees had to be approved by the Public Service Commission. It has been submitted that in these matters the final authority would be the High Powered Selection Board and not the Public Service Commission. It has been further argued that even if it was considered for the sake of argument that the approval of Public Service Commission was necessary yet the consistent practice of the Department has been that after approval of the Public Service Commission the regularization was given effect from the date from which ad hoc appointment was made. For this purpose the learned counsel has relied on the cases of Faiz Muhammad, Sh. Abdul Majid, Khalid Bashir Tarar and Muhammad Rafiq Gill. The learned counsel has also relied on the qualifications and the service record of the appellant to show that he was a capable and an experienced officer, who should have been treated senior keeping in view his said qualification.
5. On the other hand learned counsel for the respondents has submitted that the initial promotion of the appellant to the former P.C.S. (E.B.) was purely on ad hoc basis which was made in October, 1965, with specific condition that the promotion was made on purely temporary basis for a period of 6 months later on extended upto 30th June, 1966 and the officers promoted would have no right to continue P.C.S. (E.B.), and they shall also have no claim to regular appointment in the P.C.S. And could be reverted at any time without assigning any reisons. The said order also told them in clear terms that they would not be entitled to claim seniority in the P.0 S. On the basis of this ad hoc promotion, even if they were selected for regular promotion to the P.C.S It was further argued that the arguments of the learned counsel for the appellant that there was no mandatory provisions in the Service Rules for sending the case of the appellant to the Public Service Commission for according their approval, was misconcieved in view of rule 5 (6-A) of the P.C.S. (E.B.) Rules, 1964, which clearly made it mandatory that such cises shall have to be forwarded to the Commission and the Public Service Commission would be under obligation to select them for their regular appointment. It was also urged that although the appellant's case was repeated for approval to the Public Service Commission but the same stuck to its previous opinion and accepting the same, the Government was pleased to revert the appellant to substantive post of Stenographer which he duly accepted. According to the learned counsel the appellant only rejoined the post in P.C.S. (E.B.) when his case was duly approved by the Public Service Commission in 1968. In this manner it has been argued that the order of the Government relegating the seniority to the appellant from 1968, was absolutely in order and no exception can be taken to it by this Tribunal.
6. We have given our anxious thought to the arguments advanced by the parties and have no hesitation to agree with the proposition made out on behalf of the respondents that the appellant's promotion to the former P. C. S. (E. B.) was purely on ad hoc basis which was made in October, 1965, when he was clearly told that he could be reverted at any time without assigning any reasons and would also be not entitled to claim any seniority in P. C. S. (E. B.) on the basis of the said ad hoc promotion and even if he was subsequently selected for regular promotion he would not be entitled to claim any seniority in the P. C. S. (E. B.) on the basis of the said ad hoc promotion. We have also looked into the rule 5 (6-A) of the P. C. S. (E. B.) Rules, 1964, and are in full agreement with the stand of the respondents that according the said Rules, appellant had to be approved by the Public Service Commission and only after such approval he could be regularised in such service.
We have also taken care of Annexure H placed by the respondents on the record, which was an order of the Governor of West Pakistan, dated 22nd November, 1967 in which it has been clearly stated that on the advice of Public Service Commission the appellant is hereby reverted to the post held by him before his ad hoc promotion, with immediate effect. This letter has been duly communicated to the appellant by endorsing the said order to the appellant. It is also a fact apparent on the record that the appellant did accept the said reversion and went back to his substantive post of Stenographer to Commissioner, Rawalpindi and it was only when that his case was regularised by the Public Service Commission that he joined as such. With regard to the precedent of certain officers so mentioned by the appellant during the course of his arguments as well as in the Memorandum of his Appeal, we find that Messrs Faiz Muhammad, Sh. Abdul Majid, Khalid Bashir Tarar and Muhammad Rafiq Gill, were never reverted after promotion to P. C. S. And the Public Service Commission also cleared them. The case of Khalid Bashir Tarar is also similar in nature with the case of Faiz Muhammad and Sh. Abdul Majid as he continued in service till he was regularized by the Public Service Commission. However, nothing has been said in the case of Muhammad Rafiq Gill by the respondents except that a wrong precedent would not change the rule and law as laid down in this case. We cannot refute this argument on behalf of respondents as being without any force.
7. We have no dispute with the fact that the appellant was a highly qualified officer with lot of experience at his back and has also done well in service. His experience and qualifications cannot be relevant to adjudicate the issue so before us and what we have to determine is whether he was not required to appear before the Public Service Commission as claimed by him or that his service was continuous in nature and was not broken by the order of the Governor. Two important issues in this case have been elaborately dealt with by us in the earlier part of the judgment on the strength of documents so placed on the record by the respondents and the appellant himself and have no hesitation to hold that the appellant's case had to be forwarded to the Public Service Commission under rule 5 (6-A) of the Punjab Civil Services (E. B.) Rules, 1964, and the appellant did stand reverted under the order of the Governor when Public Service Commission did not agree with the Government and stuck to its earlier opinion in which they have disapproved the selection of the appellant to the P. C. S. (E. B). In view of these two crucial points so resolved against the appellant we do not consider any other matter relevant for the decision of this case of which we have made discussions about the same earlier.
8. The result is we do not find any merits in this appeal and upheld the order of the Governor by which the appellant has been given seniority from the date of his regular appointment and not from the date of his promotion on ad hoc basis to P. C. S. (E. B). However, the parties will bear their own costs.