The Court held that contract service cannot be included in the definition of a government employee
Police officers walk past the Supreme Court of Pakistan building in Islamabad, Pakistan April 6, 2022. REUTERS
ISLAMABAD:
The Supreme Court has ruled that services rendered on contract basis cannot be counted as regular government service for promotion, holding that this would be tantamount to an incorrect interpretation of the law and effectively confer civil service status from the very beginning of employment.
The 16-page judgment was authored by Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar.
The court held that contract service cannot be included in the definition of a government employee and therefore cannot be counted with regular service to fulfill the prescribed length of service required for promotion.
It further held that treating contract service as permanent service would effectively confer on contract employees the status of civil servants from the first day of their appointment.
The SC said such an interpretation would render ineffective the exclusion clauses in both the federal and provincial Civil Service Acts, which specifically exclude contract employees from the definition of a civil servant.
The judgment stated that the actual meaning and scope of the term “government service” cannot be interpreted beyond the scope of the Civil Service Act.
Referring to the Sindh Civil Servants Rules, 1975, the court observed that Rule 10 clearly provides that seniority of a civil servant is determined from the date of general appointment.
The court also held that under the Sindh Civil Service Rules, no appointment can be regulated with retrospective effect from a remote earlier date. The ruling came in an appeal filed by Muhammad Saleem Sheikh against a decision of the Sindh Service Tribunal.
The petitioner, a WAPDA employee, requested that his contractual service also count for promotion. The Sindh Service Tribunal had earlier rejected his plea to include contract service in the qualifying period for promotion.
