Administrative delays aren’t employees’ fault, SC rules

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that the government, under the doctrine of good governance, had an executive responsibility to adhere to rules and regulations as employees could not be made victims or scapegoats because of administrative delays.

“The employees cannot sit on [the] fence due to administrative or bureaucratic delays, inefficiencies, systemic delays, or in-house oversights or inadvertences of the departments as commanded by service laws jurisprudence,” observed Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar.

Justice Mazhar was heading a two-judge SC bench that took up service appeals filed by Sahibzada Hassan Ali and others against a Sept 12, 2025, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Service Tribunal decision denying seniority to regularised employees because of a belated official gazette notification.

The SC, however, set aside the tribunal’s decision.

‘Model employer’

The 13-page judgement explained that the watchword “model employer” in administrative and service laws implied that the state and public authorities should act fairly and justly without exploiting technicalities.

Court observes govt must follow rules and regulations, act as ‘model employer’

The controversy stemmed from the initial appointment of the petitioner employees against project posts through a June 30, 2016, notification under the https://www.pakp.gov.pk/act/the-khyber-pakhtunkhwa-employees-regularization-of-services-act-2018/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Employees Regula­risation of Service Act, 2018.

Their services were regularised through Aug 28, 2018, and Oct 17, 2018, notifications with effect from the Act’s commencement date of March 7, 2018.

However, due to what the court termed the “lackadaisical attitude” (lack of interest) of the lower staff and the government’s Printing Press, the notifications were only published in the Official Gazette on Aug 21, 2024 — more than six years later.

When the final seniority list for 2024 was issued, some employees filed departmental representations challenging the seniority of the petitioners.

The KP Service Tribunal allowed these appeals, ruling that since the regularisation notifications were only published in 2024, the employees were not “regular civil servants” before that date and were thus not entitled to seniority.

The SC considered whether on account of administrative lapses or unexplained delays, the employees should become victims or sufferers, notwithstanding that even in the delayed published notification, their date of regularisation was scribbled down as the effective date of the 2018 Act. “There is no such incidence put on view,” the judgement said, adding that since the regularisation was notified in the official gazette later, therefore, in the interregnum, the petitioners were sitting work-shy, inactive or at leisure without performing any duties or receiving remuneration in violation of doctrine of “no work no pay”.

“There was no justification of how the respondents who were appointed much after the petitioners could claim seniority over and above the employees who were performing duties initially as project employees and were regularised subsequently by fiction of law,” the judgement observed.

Published in Dawn, August 28th, 2026