Pick-and-choose policy adopted in rotation of police officers

The Establishment Division, in its recent notifications issued under the Rotation Policy, has made transfers and postings of Grade 20 officers on a pick-and-choose basis.

As per the notifications, the transferred officers of Sindh were DIG Munir Ahmed Shaikh, presently serving in the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA). His services have been placed at the disposal of the Punjab government.

DIG Fida Hussain Mastoi, who is presently serving under the Sindh government, was transferred and his services were placed at the disposal of the National Highways and Motorway Police under the Ministry of Communications.

Another rotation order was of DIG Iqbal Dara now serving under the Sindh government. His services have been placed at the disposal of the Punjab government. The other officer from Sindh is DIG Irfan Ali Baloch, who has been transferred and his services have been placed at the disposal of the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) under the Interior Division.

Moreover, two more officers of the DIG rank -- DIG Qamar-uz-Zaman and DIG Munir Shaikh – have been transferred and placed at the disposal of the Punjab government.

A notification said: “This notification is being issued under Rotation Policy 2020, and as per its para 13, the officer cannot be posted in geographical limits of the government of Sindh for a period of two years, from the date of joining at the station outside the geographical limits of the government of Sindh.”

Official sources said on Saturday that the Rotation Policy says, “Once an officer has been compulsorily rotated, under this policy, and posted to a particular government, then: Male officer shall not return to the government of his previous, ten-year posting: before completing two years at stations of his posting situated outside of the geographical limits of government of his ten-year posting. ii. Female officer shall not return to the government of her previous ten-year posting, before completing one year at stations of her posting situated outside of the geographical limits of government of her ten-year posting.

“Provided that period spent on OSD, earned leave, study leave, training, deputation shall not be counted towards these too years and one year respectively.

“The Rotation Policy further reads, the current officers who have served continuously for 10 years or more in any of the governments shall be transferred to other governments in three phases spanning over six months each and starting with the officers who have longest tenures in a government.”

Least rotated transferred first

To meet further shortage, the officers can be rotated even before the completion of ten years’ continuous service in a government on the principle of least rotated transferred.

Least rotated will be calculated as on the basis of the time spent posted outside the government in which the officer has served the longest. That officer will be transferred first who has the lowest percentage of time spent posted outside the government in which the officer has served the longest in relation to his total length of service.

The time spent by an officer on a post of the federal government located within the geographical limits of the provincial and other governments shall be counted towards computing his service in that provincial and other government.

Illustration

The BS-20 officer has a total of 25 years service. He has served 15 years in a province, while serving eight years in federal government and two years in province-II. Thus, his cumulative time spent outside the government in which he has served the longest Province-I), comes out to be 10 years.

Official sources said that under the Rotation Policy the first batch of seven top officers are supposed to be rotated and then after six months the next seven shall be rotated. But while going through the serial numbers of the orders the officers transferred were 3, 10, 13, 17 and 20, which seems that selected officers were picked and chosen to be transferred from the province.