‘Ultra vires’ promotions worry PSP officers

By Muhammad Faisal Ali
21/02/2010

LAHORE, Feb 20: The ‘controversial’ encadrement of a considerably large number of superintendents of police (SPs) from the provincial police with the Police Service of Pakistan under the ‘pick and choose’ policy of political governments has stirred the officers of the superior service and prompted them to go for a legal battle against what they describe as a “ridiculous and discriminatory policy”.
The encadrement of 15 officers from NWFP and 89 from Sindh, who got out of turn promotions in the past by using their political influence, has been described as a violation of seniority-cumfitness formula and discriminate antedate induction of rankers into the PSP cadre.

A recent decision of the Federal Service Tribunal (FST) on appeal No. 33 (1) CS/2008 dated Feb 6, 2010 has been declared in favour of PSP officers and the case has been sent to the Establishment Division (ED) for fixing seniority of officers from the date of their appointment/induction into the PSP cadre.

According to the tribunal, the ED has to devise a formula or rule to fix seniority of directly appointed PSP officers and inductees from the provinces under rules 7 and 11 of the 1985 Rules.

PSP officers have lambasted the ‘flawed’ policy of encadrement of the federal government and urged the prime minister and the establishment secretary to remove seniority ‘flaws’ in the light of the FST decision.

The problem, according to the PSP cadre and official documents available with Dawn, arouse when more than 20 provincial police officers (rankers) were recommended by the NWFP government for induction into the PSP cadre in 2007. Out of these, 15 officers were promoted to the rank of SP on June 2004 vide letter No (SO (Police) HD/3-80/04 dated June 14, 2004 by the provincial government without the recommendation of NWFP police inspector general Muhammad Sharif Virk and the Central Selection Board.

These officers were then directly inducted into the PSP cadre on Dec 11, 2007 with the seniority retrospective effect in 1997.

According to the PSP officers, these SPs claimed seniority 10 years before their promotion because they were awarded the seniority from the date on which they were serving as DSPs in their province. In consequence, they became senior to many PSP officers who used to write their ACRs.

Fifteen DSPs, according to a notification issued by the Establishment Division on Dec 11, 2007, were promoted to the rank of SP on Oct 21, 1997 and they occupied 15 vacant seats in the province in violation of quota rules. The point is that how would 15 officers retire on a single day to give way to these newly promoted officers.

Out of these 15 officers, some had joined the provincial police by bypassing the provincial public service commission exam and they were promoted to the rank of SP by the provincial government without any exam and training. Also, their cases were not sent to the Central Selection Board for proper procedures.

The new precedent opened doors for others who were repeatedly inducted in the PSP cadre from the retrospective date from all other provinces, hitting the seniority-cum-fitness formula.

Recently, the case of 47 DSPs who were promoted to the rank of SPs was sent to the ED by the Sindh government for their induction into the PSP cadre with the retrospective date. These officers were inducted as DSPs from other cadres into the Sindh police on political basis and without necessary exams and now they were being inducted into the PSP cadre for a political mileage.

Another case of 42 officers from Sindh is ready to be sent to the ED for encadrement that is set to discourage the PSP officers recruited through the FPSC.

The DSPs, who were promoted to the rank of SPs by the Sindh government against 40 posts available for encadrement, got out of turn promotions and now their cases were in the process for induction into the PSP cadre with retrospective effect.

The 42 officers, if inducted in the PSP cadre, would get seniority with the 26th Common officers who were now working as SSPs.

Referring to some cases of out of turn promotions, the official record shows that two officers of the Sindh police, who were recruited on B-Form instead of their regular national identity cards, were too young to be recruited to the police service.

Irfan Ali Bahadur, who was born on June 10, 1977, was appointed DSP on April 10, 1996, at the age of 18 years and 10 months, while the minimum age to sit the CSS exam for the PSP cadre is 21.

Similarly, Imran Ahmad Siddiqi was recruited as ASI on the basis of B-Form and later he was given out of turn promotion to become an SP at an early stage.

Both Bahadur and Siddiqi would claim their names in the PSP cadre with the retrospective effect and they would get seniority from the date from which they could not.

Some PSP officers said the encadrement of junior provincial police officers in large numbers would make several PSP officers junior to the rankers. They said the Sindh government’s move to promote DSPs out of turn and getting them encardered with the PSP in back dates was politically motivated. They said that irregularities in promotions would provide an opportunity to the rankers to rule the PSP cadre.

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