AZIZ AHMAD vs PROVINCE OF PUNJAB
The petitioner, a direct recruit to the Class II Service of the Industries Department, sought leave to appeal against the dismissal of his intra-court appeal by the Lahore High Court. The core legal question involved whether a recommendation made by the Punjab Civil Service (Appellate) Tribunal could be treated as a binding direction and whether the High Court correctly held that the petitioner's remedy lay before the Supreme Court under the Constitution. The Supreme Court held that the tribunal's earlier observation was merely a recommendation and not a direction, but because it had been misread as a direction in subsequent proceedings, the petitioner's proper remedy against the tribunal's subsequent order lay under Article 212 of the Constitution. The Court affirmed that the authorities were only directed to examine the recommendation, and if accepted, the petitioner would have remedies before the Services Tribunal if his seniority was affected. The petition for leave to appeal was accordingly dismissed.
- Whether a recommendation made by the Punjab Civil Service (Appellate) Tribunal can be construed as a binding direction?
- What is the appropriate constitutional remedy against an order passed by a Service Tribunal?
- Does a government directive to merely examine a service tribunal's recommendation furnish a cause of action for a grievance?
- Article 212, Constitution of Pakistan 1973
- Article 213, Constitution of Pakistan 1973
ORDER
1. DORAB PATEL, J.-The petitioner is a direct recruit to the Class II Service of the Industries Department, whilst the second respondent is a promotee and after his promotion into Class 11, he filed an application before the Punjab Civil Service (Appellate) Tribunal, Lahore praying that the seniority list of the Class II and Class I officers of the Punjab Industries Department should be corrected to his advantage. But he had been appointed to a temporary post, therefore, the Tribunal dismissed his appeal by its order dated 24-7-1972, but all the members made a recommendation, according to the petition for leave, that "the question of converting temporary posts in the industries Department into permanent posts be examined and retrospective confirmation made against those posts to remove the inequity that person appointed earlier does not remain junior to a person appointed directly at later stage".The Government did not take any steps to implement this recommendation and the matter would have rested there, but for the fact the implementation of the recommendations of the Service Tribunals would adversely affect his seniority he filed an intra-Court appeal in the Lahore High Court against the learned Single Judge's judgment of 30-E- 1979. But, this appeal was dismissed in limine with the observation that as the petitioner's basic grievance was against the orders of the Service Tribunal, he should have invoked this Court's jurisdiction under Article 213 of the Constitution. Aggrieved by this judg--ment, the petitioner has filed this petition for leave.
2. Mr. Bukhari submitted that the Punjab Civil Services (Appellate) Tribunal in its order of 20-7-1972 had merely made a recommendation to the Government. That is correct, therefore, as submitted by learned counsel, the Punjab Services Tribunal had in its order of 20-8-1979 erred in treating this recom--mendation as a direction and further erred in directing the department "that they should comply with the earlier direction of the Tribunal...". Similarly, as submitted by Mr. Bukhari the learned Single Judge had erred in allowing the second respondent's writ petition with the direction that the Government should "implement the directions given in the orders of the Tribunal, within three months". As we explained, there was no direction, but only a recom--mendation in the Punjab Civil Services (Appellate) Tribunal's order of 27-7-1972 and unfortunately for the petitioner this recommendation was misread in subsequent proceedings as a direction.
3. However, although the initial recommendation of the Punjab Civil Service (Appellate) Tribunal had been misread, it was, as rightly observed in the impugned order, misread by the Punjab Civil Services Tribunal in its order of 20-8-1979 dismissing the petitioner's appeal. Therefore, on the footing that he had a cause of action for challenging the observation in the Tribunal's order of 20- 8-1979, his only remedy was a petition to this Court under Article 212 of the Constitution. Therefore, we see no errors in the impugned order.
4. Additionally, the Government has only been directed to examine the recommendation of the Service Tribunal on the question of converting temporary posts in the Industries Department to permanent posts, and of granting retrospective confirmation against these posts Therefore, if the recommendation is not accepted for any reason by the Government, the petitioner would have no cause for grievance. But, on the other band, if the recommendation is accepted, the seniority list will be altered in consequence and this would entitle the petitioner to approach the Punjab Services Tribunal if his seniority is wrongly taken away: In any view of the matter, therefore, the petition is without merit and is dismissed.