Article on PTCL Pensioners and the Continuing Struggle for Justice

 English Article

Article on PTCL Pensioners and the Continuing Struggle for Justice . Why the Restrictive Interpretation of PTET Regarding Government Pension Is Legally Unsustainable

For more than a decade, thousands of retired employees of the former Telegraph & Telephone (T&T) Department, later Pakistan Telecommunication Corporation (PTC), and ultimately PTCL, have been struggling to obtain their lawful pensionary rights. These pensioners are not asking for charity, favour, or discretionary relief. They are demanding implementation of rights already protected by law and repeatedly recognized by the superior courts of Pakistan.

Unfortunately, instead of implementing the spirit and letter of the Supreme Court judgments, PTET and PTCL have continued to create unnecessary obstacles, artificial classifications, and legal confusion.

One of the most controversial aspects of the present dispute is the changing and contradictory position adopted by PTET.

After the Supreme Court order dated 15-02-2018, PTET granted Government of Pakistan pension and Government pension increases to approximately 342 normally retired PTCL pensioner-petitioners. Importantly, these pensioners belonged to different grades, including lower grades. At that time, PTET never raised the objection that employees from BPS-1 to BPS-16 were merely “workmen” and therefore not entitled to Government pension.

Letters were issued by PTET informing such pensioners about their revised Government pension and arrears payable to them. This fact alone destroys PTET’s present argument.

Today, after the landmark Supreme Court judgment dated 10-07-2025, PTET has adopted an entirely different position. It is now attempting to restrict Government pension only to those officers who were allegedly appointed through the Federal Public Service Commission in BPS-17 before January 1991. All others are now being labeled as “workmen” and denied Government pension.

This position is not only contradictory but also legally weak.

The judgment dated 12-06-2015, reported as PTET v. Muhammad Arif (2015 SCMR 1472), was delivered by a three-member Bench of the Honourable Supreme Court. That judgment clearly recognized the pensionary rights of transferred employees and obligated PTET to follow Government pension notifications.

In contrast, the order dated 15-02-2018 was passed by a smaller two-member Bench during contempt/compliance proceedings. Such an order could not legally amend, override, or restrict the earlier three-member Bench judgment. Under settled principles of law, a smaller Bench cannot modify the binding ratio of a larger Bench.

Therefore, the 2018 proceedings could not lawfully create permanent exclusions against VSS retirees or lower-grade pensioners.

The present theory advanced by PTET — that only FPSC-appointed BPS-17 officers can be treated as entitled to Government pension — has no solid statutory or judicial foundation.

No law declares that all employees from BPS-1 to BPS-16 automatically lose protected pensionary rights merely because they were not recruited through FPSC. Similarly, no binding judgment has held that only pre-1991 FPSC officers qualify for Government pension.

The real legal issue is not the mode of recruitment. The real issue is whether pensionary protections attached to transferred employees under the statutory framework continued after transfer from T&T to PTC and PTCL. The superior courts have repeatedly recognized the protected nature of such pensionary rights.

PTET also cannot ignore the constitutional principle of equality. Pensioners who are similarly situated cannot be treated differently without lawful justification. Selective implementation of Supreme Court judgments amounts to discrimination and undermines public confidence in institutions.

The conduct of PTET and its legal representatives also raises serious concerns. If PTET itself implemented Government pension for lower-grade normally retired petitioners in 2018, then suddenly introducing the “workman” theory after the 2025 judgment appears to be an afterthought aimed at restricting the financial impact of the Supreme Court decisions.

The elderly pensioners and widows of PTCL have already suffered enough due to prolonged litigation and delayed implementation. Many pensioners have passed away while waiting for justice. Others continue to face severe financial hardship despite clear judicial pronouncements in their favour.

The matter now requires immediate, honest, and lawful implementation instead of further technical objections and endless litigation.

The Supreme Court judgments should be implemented in their true letter and spirit for all legally entitled transferred pensioners, without artificial discrimination and without creating unlawful categories unsupported by law.

History ultimately favours justice, and no institution can indefinitely resist lawful rights protected by the Constitution and affirmed by the superior judiciary of Pakistan.

By Muhammad Tariq Azhar

Retired General Manager (BPS-19), PTCL

Date 7th May 2026