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Title: The Contentious Decision of the Islamabad High Court on 2nd November 2021: A Critical Legal Analysis

Dear PTCL Colleagues,

Assalam-o-Alaikum,

It might be known to some that the division bench decision of the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on 2nd November 2021 regarding PTI and PTCL inter-court appeals is highly controversial. In this regard, I penned a detailed article on 26th December 2021, thoroughly discussing the decision's flaws and why it is deemed contentious. [This Article 154 was reuploaded on my blog site on 19th July 2024, for public access].

The judgment, authored by Honorable Justice Aamer Farooq, was framed in the context of a Supreme Court ruling on 7th October concerning the case of Masood Bhatti & Others, where the appellants were civil servants due to their affiliation with grade 17 or higher positions. Thus, only employees of the former T&T in grade 17 or above were considered civil servants and hence entitled to government-declared pension benefits after retirement, provided their retirement was under normal circumstances, i.e., without opting for Voluntary Separation Scheme (VSS).

In paragraph 4 of the judgment, it is stated that the learned counsel for PTET and PTCL, Shahid Anwar Bajwa, misrepresented in court that all employees of the former Telephone Department were declared civil servants because the appellants in the case were civil servants. This misrepresentation omitted a significant detail: among the three appellants, one, Syed Muhammad Dil Awez, was a grade 5 employee. Counsel Bajwa informed the court that employees from grade 1 to 16, categorized as workmen and not fitting the civil servant designation, thus weren't eligible for government pension benefits and would only receive pensions as per the company's approval. This basis led to the judgment's entirety being viewed as controversial.

The controversy arises because the IHC decision appears to exclude a significant group of employees from receiving government pension benefits based on their grade or method of retirement (VSS), contradicting several Supreme Court judgments which did not draw such distinctions. These Supreme Court decisions established that prior to corporatization under PTCL Act 1991, all employees were considered civil servants under the applicable statutory rules. Even after corporatization and subsequent company conversion, these employees retained certain protections under civil servant legislation, allowing them to seek redress through High Courts under Article 199 of the Constitution, privileges typically reserved for government civil servants.

This analysis raises the question of why the IHC differentiated between PTCL employees retired normally and those opting for VSS, and between employees of different grades, in contradiction to Supreme Court rulings that did not make such distinctions. Such differentiation not only misrepresents the factual and legal position but also unjustly deprives a significant portion of retired employees from their entitled pension benefits.

It's perplexing why the decision of 2nd November 2021 by the IHC specifically granted pension benefits under government announcements to only those PTCL retirees who were directly recruited in T&T and retired normally while excluding others without legal justification. This goes against the grain of Supreme Court decisions that upheld the rights of all PTCL employees, irrespective of their grade or the nature of their retirement, to government-announced pension benefits and increments.

Therefore, this analysis demonstrates the need for a critical look at the legal basis and implications of the IHC decision, advocating for uniform application of laws and rights to all PTCL employees as per the precedent set by the Supreme Court of Pakistan.

Yours Faithfully,

[Muhammad Tariq Azhar]

Retired General Manager (OPS) PTCL

Dated 30th July 2024