' BASHARAT AHMAD SHAIKH, J.---The High Court has accepted a writ petition filed by respondent No, 1 and has issued a direction to the Chief Secretary and Secretary Services to dispose of the case of the said respondent pending with them within three months.
2. The facts of the case are that respondent No, 1 Sardar Muhammad Khurshid Khan filed a writ petition in the High Court on 16th of August, 1994 in which he prayed that the Chief Secretary, Secretary Services and Azad Government of the State of Jammu and Kashmir may be directed that order passed by the Prime Minister on 3rd of November, 1993 may be implemented. He also sought a direction that "no further amendment or any interference be made in the order". The order of 3rd of November, 1993 sought to be implemented through the writ petition, which was attached as Annexure "E", was to the effect that the departmental appeal filed by Sardar Muhammad Khurshid Khan, Principal, Agrotechnical Teachers Training School, Muzaffarabad, was accepted and the said civil servant was absorbed in the general school cadre with effect from 22nd of June, 1977 and he was given seniority in Grade-18 from the aforesaid date. It was averred in the writ petition that the order of 3rd of November, 1993 was not implemented by Secretary Services and General Administration. Subsequently the matter was brought to the notice of the Prime Minister who issued a direction on 26th of January, 1994 that the aforesaid order may be implemented. Thereafter on a note written by the Minister of Education the Prime Minister issued an order on 22nd of February, 1994 that the matter may be kept pending and may be decided after hearing a large number of teachers of the general school cadre, who were said to have been adversely affected by the Notification of 3rd of November, 1993, On 8th of February, 1994 the case was marked by the Prime Minister to his Special Assistant on an appeal filed by the President of Headmasters/Secondary Schools Officers Association with a direction to consolidate all the appeals and to decide the matter after hearing the affected persons belonging to the general cadre. On 25th of March, 1994 the Special Assistant submitted a note to the Prime Minister that the appeals and representations were not maintainable. He recommended that the order proposed by him on 26th of January, 1994 may be issued. It was submitted in the writ petition that in spite of the decision given by the Special Assistant, who was described as the appellate authority, Notification dated 3rd of November had not been given effect to and junior persons were promoted and given higher grade. Alongwith the writ petition an application for interim relief was also moved in which it was stated that the petitioner before the High Court, Sardar Muhammad Khurshid Khan, apprehended that the respondents were processing a file for seeking an amendment in the order. It was prayed that a status quo order may be issued. The application was granted by the High Court on 23rd of August, 1995 by ordering that status quo will be maintained.
3. The present appellant Mrs. Iffat Ara moved an application on 30th of January, 1995 praying that she may be impleaded as a respondent in the writ petition. In the application she stated that the order of 3rd of November, 1993. Which was sought to be implemented through writ petition, had been challenged by her in the Service Tribunal by filing an appeal after exhausting the departmental remedy. She also stated that the review petition filed by her before the Prime Minster had been meanwhile accepted and a formal Notification vacating the order of 3rd of November, 1993 was about to be issued when Sardar Muhammad Khurshid Khan obtained the stay order of the High Court. She duly filed an affidavit in support of her submissions. The application for being impleaded as a party was accepted. Another application was filed by a large number of other civil servants belonging to the general cadre of Education Department and they were also impleaded as respondents.
4. In the judgment under appeal a learned Judge in the High Court, who was seized of the writ petition, has observed in para. 6 of the judgment that question of determining the seniority of the parties in the writ petition was out of the purview of the High Court. It was further observed that in this respect the competent Authority had issued a Notification on 3rd of November, 1993 but two subsequent orders were also issued on 26th of January, 1994 and 25th of March, 1994. The learned Judge, however, observed that it was within the competence of the High Court to issue a direction to the State functionaries to decide a matter within a time to be specified by the High Court in this connection. The learned Judge reproduced the following paragraph from a judgment of this Court Raja Naveed Hussain Khan and others v. Qazi Khalilur Rehman and others 1994 SCR 267:-- "The observation of the Supreme Court of Pakistan that where the departmental authorities procrastinate or refuse to pass a final order the remedy for the aggrieved civil servant is to seek a Constitutional remedy refers to a direction that the matter pending with the departmental authority may be disposed of. It nowhere lays down that if a matter is delayed as aforesaid the jurisdiction of the High Court is attracted so that it may give direction by itself determining terms and conditions of service."
' The learned Judge expressed the view that the Secretary Service had adopted procrastinating attitude. In this view of the matter, as mentioned earlier, the High Court issued a direction to the Chief Secretary and Secretary Services to dispose of the matter within three months.
5. The learned counsel for the appellant submitted before us that the order of 3rd of November, 1993, which was sought to be implemented through writ petition, had already been rescinded on a review petition field by the present appellant but when the Notification was about to be issued respondent Sardar Muhammad Khurshid Khan approached the High Court and obtained a stay order which was not within the competence of the High Court. He addressed arguments in support of the appeal and submitted that the order of the High Court may be set aside. The learned counsel for the respondents, Sardar Rafique Mahmood Khan, opposed the acceptance of the appeal on the ground that it is in the interest of justice and to the benefit of both the parties that the dispute between the parties is settled by the concerned State functionaries within the time stipulated by the High Court,
6. Our view is that direction given by the High Court advances the ends of justice and does not suffer from any jurisdictional defect. Admittedly the High Court has no jurisdiction to hear a dispute relating to terms and conditions of service. This position has been duly followed by the High Court in the judgment under appeal. However, the High Court has the jurisdiction to issue a direction that Departmental Authority may dispose of a dispute within a reasonable time if the High Court is satisfied that the departmental authority is procrastinating or is refusing to pass a final order.
When this legal position was pointed out to the learned counsel for the appellant he drew our attention to some portions of the judgment under appeal to contend that some of the observations tend to support the case of respondent, Sardar Muhammad Khurshid Than. We have gone through the relevant portions and we are of the view that apprehension is misconceived. All the observations made in the judgment under appeal have been made to show that unnecessary delay was being committed by the departmental authority. However, in view of the apprehension of the learned counsel for the appellant we may observe that departmental authorities shall not be influenced one way or the other from the observations made by the High Court or in this judgment while deciding the dispute between the parties in the present controversy.
7. The High Court fixed a period of three months for disposal for the dispute. Since the time has already elapsed it is clarified that three months' period would commence from the date on which this judgment is announced.
' With the observations made above we dismiss the appeal without an order as to costs.