Experts assail Sindh Civil Servants Amendment Bill 2015

KARACHI: Sindhi constitutional experts, intellectuals and writers declared the Sindh Civil Servants Amendment Bill 2015 as illegal, unconstitutional, anti-merit and contradictory to Supreme Court orders.
On Friday, the Sindh Provincial Assembly passed a law, Sindh Civil Servants Amendment Bill 2015, which was moved by Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Dr Sikandar Mendhro.
Conflicting with the Supreme Court’s orders to send back the over 300 senior officers on deputation to their parent departments, the Sindh Assembly on Friday passed a law that empowers the Sindh Government to appoint officials from any provincial or federal government departments, Autonomous bodies and Government Companies on deputation and absorb them to any post, service or cadre of equal grade.
According to Sindh Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Dr Sikandar Mendhro’s statement regarding the said legislation that “the purpose of this bill is to streamline the ‘Sindh Civil Servants Act, 1973’ and officers were either appointed on deputation or absorbed into various government departments where they worked for over 20 years, before the Supreme Court had ordered to relieve them; given their contribution and expertise, we are making this law to bring them back to their positions,”
Interestingly, the bill states that the appointments made by the government shall not be called into question in any court.
Prominent Lawyer and Constitutional expert Shuhab Osto said: “This is totally an illegal, unconstitutional and black law and introduced only to defeat the orders of Supreme Court. After the implementation of this law, the Sindh Government can post any person of any provincial or federal departments, autonomous bodies on any position and absorb his services,” said Mr Osto.
He further added that this law is contradictory to articles 25 and 240 of the Constitution, and the Sindh Government, through this law, not only to return the 300 officers in Sindh Government who were relieved to their parent department on SC orders but also wanted to save incompetent officers especially DSPs of Sindh Police who were appointed in 1996 and failed to pass the departmental examination and their initial appointments were about to challenge in the upper courts.
Mr Osto said that according to the settled laws of the country appointment in Grade 16 or above could only be through Public Service Commission but this law has changed the definition of appointments only in the Sindh province, now appointments in Sindh could be through deputation and absorption.
Senior lawyer and former Judge of the Sindh High Court, Justice (R) Rasheed A Rizvi, told that this law is against the basics of Constitution and will open the doors of corruption and mismanagement. He said that no subordinate legislation could prohibit the high courts and Supreme Court jurisdiction under articles 191 and 184 (3) and any one can challenge the law in the upper courts.
Prominent intellectual and editor of a Sindhi paper Ali Qazi told The News that when there are already so many question marks on the performance of Sindh Government, by this legislation it will be worsen further. Now any blue-eyed could be appointed on any post which will ruin the basic structure of Sindh bureaucracy, and majority of officers appointed through the Public Service Commission will effect through this law.
Senior Lawyer Zamer Ghurmo said that this law only to overthrow the orders of Supreme Court and in 2013 the five acts regarding the amendments to Civil Service passed by the Sindh Assembly already been declared as illegal and unconstitutional and this law also will be challenged and probably declared illegal and unconstitutional.
Mr Ghurmo said that this law is only to accommodate the sons, nephews and close relatives and party loyal persons in bureaucracy.
Adovcate Haq Nawaz Talpur, Writer Naseer Memon and Asghar Soomro also declared the law as illegal and unconstitutional.