Supreme Court verdict on out of turn promotion case of Police Officers
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ISLAMABAD (APP): The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed all the petitions seeking review over court orders regarding out of turn shoulder promotions of police officers.
The court, in its order, said with majority of four to one (Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali dissenting), the review petitions along with all other miscellaneous applications were dismissed.
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The three-member bench of the apex court headed by Justice Amir Hani Muslim announced the verdict which was reserved by a five-member larger bench on December 14.
The court order stated that all the listed review ptitions and the applications were dismissed. "The I.G.P, Punjab, the Home Secretary, Punjab, and the Secretary, Establishment Division, are directed to comply with the judgment, by fixing the seniority of all the police officers who were given out of turn promotion alongwith their batch-mates, as if they were never given out of turn promotion.
"However, the orders of withdrawal of out of turn promotion passed by the Department/Competent Authority should be recalled against the Police Officers who had earned out of turn promotions, pursuant to the judgments of superior Courts/Service Tribunals."
The court order stated that fore the purpose of compliance of this judgment, necessary D.P.C/Board, as the case may be, shall be immediately held without further loss of time and a compliance report be submitted to the Registrar of this Court for our perusal in Chambers. "This exercise shall be completed within a period of one month. The Advocate General, Punjab, and the Attorney General for Pakistan shall communicate the directives of this Court to the relevant authorities," according to the court verdict.
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The court stated that these directives should also be applicable to all the Police officials who are governed by Police Rules, 1934 and the competent authority should ensure compliance to streamline the service structure of the police by redressing the heart burning and dismay of the police officials at the hands of high ups, who abuse their discretion in violation of the Police Rules.
The court remarked that the Punjab Government/Competent Authority has withdrawn all out of turn promotions earned by the police officials, in terms of Section 8-A of the Punjab Civil Servants Act, 1974. As a consequence, hundreds of thousands of police personnel have acquired their lawful right to promotion/seniority, which was denied to them owing to the invalid omitted law i.e. Section 8-A of the Act.
"In fact, a right has been created in favour of hundreds of thousands of Punjab Police personnel due to withdrawal of all out of turn promotions by the Punjab Government/Competent Authority. The police personnel in whose favour this right to gain lawful promotion/seniority has been created, were not impleaded as party to the present proceedings, therefore, these proceedings on this score alone merit dismissal.
"Hamid Khan, counsel for one of petitioners, has refered to Article 259 of the Constitution to substantiate his point that the said Policy has been framed to promote sports in terms of the said Article. The perusal of Article 259, however, does not provide for any accelerated promotion and in fact confines the awards to the extent of decorations to be given by the President under the Federal Law.
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"It should be pointed out that the context of Article 259 is entirely different and it deals with the awards to be given to citizens by way recognizing their varied services and performances. It cannot be stretched beyond the given parameters to include accelerated promotions, by way of the said Policy; hence, the contentions of the learned Counsel are without substance.
"The accelerated promotions on the basis of Sports Policy are allowed to the officers who belong to a group that is separate from the main police group, and hence, distinction has to be drawn. Apparently, this contention does not seem convincing given the fact that the bench have perused the record and found that there exist no separate group of sports in the Punjab Police.
In fact, serving police officers are participating in the sports competitions and they are the subjects of accelerated promotions on the basis of their performance.
"We have already held that seniority and promotions of the police officers are to be fixed/decided on the basis of the required standards provided in the service rules, hence accelerated promotions cannot be accorded on the basis of an officer's performance in a sports competition," the order stated.
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"However, it would be open to the government to frame rules providing a Sports Group within police in order to encourage and incentivize sports, which will not form part of the regular police force. In other words, the members of Sports Group shall not be assigned field posting, but will be restricted to their specialized Group."
