' A.O. RAZIUR RAHMAN (MEMBER).-- The Appellant, who was an officer of the Income-tax Service, was promoted as Commissioner of Income-tax (Grade 20) in the year 1975. By an order dated 22-11- 1980, he was retired under section 13(b) of the Civil Servants Act, 1973, after he had completed 25 years of service. Having preferred a review petition before the President against the above order, and not having received any reply thereto, he came in appeal before the Tribunal under section 4 of the Service Tribunals Act, 1973. The appeal, having been admitted, was finally heard on 22-4- 1984 and is being disposed of by this order.
2. The case of the appellant is that, having been selected as a result of the Central Superior Services Examination, he joined the Pakistan Taxation Service in 1954 as an Income-tax Officer.
Thereafter, he continued to earn promotion step by step till his appointment as Income-tax Commissioner (Grade 20) in January, 1975. After that, five A.C.Rs were written on him for the years 1975 to 1979 and in these he was graded as "Good" in four reports and considered fit for promotion in as many as 3 (for the years 1977, 1978 and 1979). It was only in the A.C.R. For the year 1976 that he was assessed as "Average" and not considered fit for promotion. For this reason, according to the appellant, there could be no justification for deciding to retire him from service under section 13(ii) of the Civil Servants Act, 1973. Besides this, it is his contention that the overall record was also satisfactory and could not justify the impugned order. In support of this stand, it has been pointed out, on his behalf, that, in the summary submitted by the Chairman, Central Board of Revenue, to the President, in connection with the review petition submitted by the appellant, the Chairman had stated that, out of the 36 A.C.Rs, written on the appellant by different reporting officers, as many as 60% rated him as either "Good" or "Very Good" and only 40% considered him, as "Average", there being no "Below Average" Report. It has also been pointed out, on his behalf, that the recommendation of the Review Committee, on the basis of which the President passed the impugned order, was not an impartial recommendation but one motivated by consideration other than those of merit. In this connection, our attention has been drawn to the following passage occurring in the Chairman's note, from which we have been asked to draw the inference that the recommendation of the Review Committee headed by the then Advisor to the President on Establishment Lt.-Gen. (Retd.) F.A. Chishti, was biased and mala fide and not based on an impartial and objective assessm ent of the fitness or otherwise of the officer for retention in service beyond 25 years and, as such, it vitiated the resultant order under section 13(ii):- "It has been ascertained from the Finance Secretary as well as from the former Chairman, Central Board of Revenue, who was recently on an official visit to Pakistan, that during the course of the review, the satisfactory performance of the petitioner was brought to the notice of the Review Committee's Chairman, who had then remarked that Mr. S. Gulzar Hussain Shah was 'mean and keen' and decided to retire him."
' For this reason, it was argued, the order was itself ab initio void and, therefore, not deserving the protection given to orders under section 13(ii), by Article 13(i) of the P.C.O., 1981. In further amplification of his charge that the action taken against him was mala fide, The appellant has alleged that he was retired from service in order to clear the way for the promotion of some of his junior officers. With reference to the seniority list of Grade 20 Officers of the Income-tax Group as on 4th June, 1978, it was pointed out that the appellant, who was at serial No, 6 of the seniority list, was due for consideration for promotion to the next higher grade, on creation of 3 posts of Regional Commissioners of Income-tax. According to him, he was the only officer qualified for consideration for such promotion. As stated in the Establishment Division D.O. Letter No, 11/14/79, T.II, dated 8th June, 1980, addressed to the Secretaries of the various Divisions of the Government, the President had been pleased to approve the proposal that successful participation in a regular course at the Pakistan Administrative Staff College, Lahore, should be made a prerequisite for promotion of officers from Grade 20 to 21, subject to exemption in the case of those attending an equivalent course. In view of this, the appellant, who had completed a 44 weeks' course at the National College of Defence, as against the three months' duration of the Pakistan Administrative Staff College course, and had earned a highly complimentary report, at the conclusion of the course, praising him for "exemplary enthusiasm", "hard work", and "creditable comprehension", and reporting him as having "made useful contribution to the discussions" and "acquitted very ably as Chairman of the assigned speciality", in addition to being credited with the possession of a "sincere and honest nature" and also being found "fit for promotion to the next higher grade in his own parent cadr3", was the only officer qualified for promotion to Grade 21. In his presence, those junior to him could not be considered for promotion, so long as the Appellant remained in the field.
Therefore, those interested in the promotion of his juniors had to remove him from the scene, in order to promote the juniors, two of whom, namely, those at S. Nos, 10 and 15 of the list, namely, Mr. M.A.M. Siddiqui and Mr. Salahuddin Chaudhry, have since been promoted in February, 1984, without their having gone through the course at the Pakistan Administrative. Staff College. This, according to the appellant, was proof positive of the fact that the appellant's retirement was intended only to facilitate the promotion of the juniors. In this connection, it has further been pointed out to us that the remarks of the Chairman of the Review Committee, quoted by the Chairman, CBR, clearly indicated that the said Chairman was also prejudiced against the appellant and, therefore, the recommendation of the Committee was not a bona fide recommendation and it had resulted in an order which too could not be considered as a bona fide order under section 13(11) of the Civil Servants Act.
3. As against the above the stand of the respondent-Department is that the impugned order cannot be appealed against, in view of the provision of Article 13(1) of the P.C.O., 1981. Moreover, according to him, there was no malice involved in the passing of the impugned order, which was otherwise legal, valid and proper.
4. We have heard both the parties at length and perused the relevant documents, including the minutes of the Review Committee, the views of the Establishment Division and the orders of the President thereon, as well as the summary prepared for the consideration of the President by the Chairman of the Central Board of Revenue, the observations of the Establishment Secretary on the summary and the final orders of the President rejecting the review petition. We have also gone through the A.C.Rs, of the appellant.
5. Although the appellant has tried to make out a formidable case to impugn the order of his retirement on grounds of mala fide, we do not propose to adjudicate on the question whether there was actually any male fide involved, because, Article 13(1) of the P.C.0. Very clearly bars the jurisdiction of the Tribunal in respect of appeals against orders passed under section 13(ii) of the Civil Servants Act "on any ground whatsoever". Therefore, we cannot interfere with any order passed by the competent authority retiring civil servants who have completed 25 years of service.
Had the case of the appellant been that the order was not passed by the competent authority or that he had not completed 25 years of service, we would surely have considered it a fit case for interference, because, in that case, the bar of jurisdiction would not have applied. But, as it is, the case of the appellant is that the service record did not justify his retirement and that the retirement had been ordered to help the case for the promotion of some of his juniors and because of the hostility of the Chairman of the Review Committee. As already explained, because of the bar on jurisdiction placed by Article 13(1), we cannot go into the merits of the allegations levelled by the appellant.
6. In the result, we are of the view that the appeal deserves to be dismissed. It is, therefore, ordered accordingly.