ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court ruled that the watchword “Model Employer” in administrative and service laws insinuates that the State and public authorities should act fairly and justly without exploiting technicalities.
The judgment authored by Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar said: “No prejudice or harm should be caused to an employee on account of administrative delays or administrative inefficiency or disorder without any rhyme or reason.”
“Sincere efforts should have been made within the auspicious administrative domain and patronage to ensure that all recruitments must be made transparently and deserving persons are provided opportunities for jobs; the meetings of departmental promotional committees/ selection boards are convened without inordinate delays; pension or retirement benefits are processed expeditiously without causing miseries and distresses to the retired employee; issues of seniority including inter-se seniority must be decided promptly and seniority lists are corrected accordingly; the ad-hoc or contractual employment should not continue for an unlimited period of time and if the employee is worthy of confirmation, then the departmental efforts ought to have been made for regularisation of such service,” it added.
The judgment also said that an employee cannot be made a victim or scapegoat due to delay in the publication of notification in the gazette.
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A two-member bench set aside the judgment of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Service Tribunal, Peshawar, and restored the petitioners’ seniority to its original position.
The petitioners (employees) were initially appointed against the project posts vide Notification dated 30.06.2016 after complying with all codal formalities. After a while, the Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa promulgated the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Employees Regularisation of Service Act, 2018 (Act of 2018) on 07.03.2018, wherein at least 52 different projects were regularised. As a direct consequence, the employees were regularised vide Notifications dated 28.08.2018 and 17.10.2018 with effect from the commencement of the Act; i.e., 07.03.2018, but due to the reckless attitude of the lower staff of the concerned Department, the notifications were belatedly published in the Official Gazette on 21.08.2024 but with effect from 07.03.2018 (date of promulgation of Act of 2018).
The Department determined the inter-se seniority in accordance with Section 6 of the Act of 2018 and issued the Final Seniority List vide notification dated 13.02.2019, and thereafter, other seniority lists were also issued from time to time.
When the Final Seniority List for the year 2024 was issued vide notification dated 14.03.2024, some of the employees (private respondents) preferred joint Departmental Representation on 30.07.2024, which was rejected on 13.08.2024 and consequently service appeals were filed before the Tribunal, which were allowed vide impugned Judgment and Seniority List was set aside on the premise that in terms of section 5 of the Act of 2018, the regularisation notification of Petitioners (employees) dated 28.08.2018 was published in the official gazette on 21.08.2024 and till such publication, the said petitioners were not regular civil servants and hence not entitled to seniority.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2026
