LHC declares appointments of low-grade officers on high-grade posts illegal

Lahore High Court (LHC) Sunday declared the appointments of officers with low grades to high-grade posts illegal and directed the Punjab Chief Secretary to revise the appointments of 183 officers within 30 days.
According to the 24News HD TV channel, LHC's Justice Tariq Saleem Sheikh gave a historic verdict on Tanveer Sarwar's petition against the illegal appointments.
In the court decision, the On-Pay-Scale appointments have been declared against Articles 4 and 25.
The judgment held that the notifications dated 17th May 1982 and 1st May 2000 of the Services and General Administration Department (S&GAD) have no legal status.
An appointment should be made to the vacant post under the rules and if this is not possible for any reason then a temporary appointment should be made under the PCS Rules, the court decided.
The court decision further said that apart from Rule 10-A, there is no scope for the appointment of civil servants under OPS in higher grades.
However, the judgment further stated that the appointment can be made as an acting charge under Rule 10A only.
Pertinent to mention here that the petitioner had challenged the initiative of appointing low-scale officers to senior posts.

Reporter: Malik Ashraf