SHAFIUR RAHMAN, J.---The Petitioner seeks leave to appeal against the judgment of the Federal Service Tribunal dated 4-5-1989 whereby his appeal was dismissed on the basis of reasoning recorded in another similar appeal preferred by Major (Reid.) Ahmad Hussain Sheikh.
2. At the relevant time the Petitioner was a Commissioned Officer of the Army. He was selected for induction into the civil service. A High Powered Selection Board cleared him in 1979 and he assumed the charge of Section Officer on 19-12-1979. The Petitioner was also assigned seniority accordingly. Thereafter, on 12-1-1987, the earlier notification inducting him into civil service from 19- 12-1979 was revoked and instead the date of induction was brought down to 9-8-1981. The contention of the petitioner was that the President, having competently inducted him into civil service on 19-12-1979, had lost the locus poenitentiae and could not bring down the date of induction about two years later. He claimed seniority on the civil side on the basis of the notification which had issued earlier.
3. The decision of the Service Tribunal and the revocation of the notification by the Government, both proceed on the assumption which appears to be well founded, that in 1979, the President was not possessed of the power to bypass the Federal Public Service Commission, while inducting officers on the post on which the Petitioner was inducted in 1979. The induction of the Petitioner at that time was ab initio in conflict with the law on the subject then existing. There was no power in the President either at that stage to make exception of the law. Hence the earlier selection and induction could not be defended. It was subsequently, that when the Federal Public Service Commission Ordinance was amended and so were its Function Rules, that the induction of Army Officers through a High Powered Selection Board became possible by bypassing the Federal Public Service Commission's examination. It was the revocation of the notification of 1979 which was not so much an act of locus poenitentiae as an act of correcting error, substituting a nullity for a valid order and removing a void order from the scene. It was in this context that the period between 1979 and 1981 was treated as contract service of the Petitioner or secondment which was permissible under the law then existing.
4. We have gone through the law on the subject with a view to examine the correctness of these assumptions or conclusions on which the petitioner has failed. We find that these are fully borne out by contemporaneous law on the subject. Hence no case is made out for leave to appeal which is hereby refused.