The Supreme Court has ruled that contract service cannot be counted for promotion of government employees

ISLAMABAD – The Supreme Court of Pakistan has ruled that service on contract basis cannot be considered as regular service for the purpose of promotions in government jobs.

The 16-page judgment authored by Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar said that contract service does not fall within the statutory definition of a public servant and therefore cannot be included while calculating the minimum length of service required for promotion.

The court held that to treat contract service as regular service would be tantamount to giving contract employees the status of government employees ab initio, which would be a misinterpretation of the law.

The judgment further held that counting contract service for promotions would undermine the provisions of both the federal and provincial Civil Servant Acts which exclude contract employees from the definition of public servant. It added that the term “public service” should be interpreted within the framework of the Civil Servants Act.

Referring to Rule 10 of the Sindh Civil Servant Rules, 1975, the court said that the seniority of a government servant is calculated from the date of regular appointment and no appointment can be regularized retrospectively under the rules.

The decision came in an appeal filed by an employee of WAPDA, Muhammad Saleem Shaikh, challenging the decision of the Sindh Service Tribunal. Shaikh had tried to count his contractual service as his eligibility for promotion. The Supreme Court upheld the decision of the Tribunal and dismissed the appeal.

The post According to the order of the Supreme Court, contract service cannot be considered for the promotion of government employees appeared first on Daily Pakistan English News.

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