ISLAMABAD – The Supreme Courtroom has dominated that authorities workers should be given a good alternative of listening to earlier than their seniority is modified, even when the unique seniority dedication was opposite to the related service guidelines. A 3-member bench comprising Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar, Justice Musarrat Hilali and Justice Shahid Bilal Hassan issued the judgment whereas deciding overview petitions filed by Sindh Police sub-inspectors. The court docket noticed that revising the petitioners’ seniority checklist in 2020 with out listening to them violated the ideas of pure justice and due course of assured underneath Article 10-A of the Structure. The petitioners maintained that they’d been assigned their correct positions within the seniority checklist issued on April 28, 2015, however had been positioned under their colleagues when the checklist was revised on November 18, 2020, with out issuing show-cause notices or offering a chance to current their case. The court docket held that seniority was an essential service proper linked to workers’ profession development. Even when the unique seniority checklist was inconsistent with service guidelines, the affected workers needed to be heard earlier than any antagonistic change. The Supreme Courtroom recalled its order of April 4, 2024, restored the related civil petitions, transformed them into appeals and partly allowed them. It additionally put aside the Sindh Service Tribunal’s resolution to the extent of the primary group of petitioners.The court docket directed the Sindh Police Division to listen to the affected officers, look at their objections and difficulty a reasoned resolution in accordance with the legislation. If their objections had been discovered legitimate and the revision illegal, a contemporary seniority checklist can be issued inside two months of receipt of the judgment. The court docket additionally ordered that the prevailing place underneath the November 18, 2020, seniority checklist be maintained for the primary group of petitioners within the meantime.
