Administrative delays aren’t employees’ fault, SC rules

Administrative delays aren't employees' fault, SC rules.

Key points

• 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.
• Nasir Iqbal Published August 28, 2026 Updated August 28, 2026 07: 35am.
• When the final seniority list for 2024 was issued, some employees filed departmental representations challenging the seniority of the petitioners.
• Court observes govt must follow rules and regulations, act as 'model employer'.

Nasir Iqbal Published August 28, 2026 Updated August 28, 2026 07: 35am. Join our Whatsapp Channel. Add Dawn as a trusted source.

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

"The employees cannot sit on 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 since of a belated official gazette notification. The SC, nevertheless, set aside the tribunal's decision.

For context, 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.

In practice, the controversy stemmed from the initial appointment of the petitioner employees against project posts through a June 30, 2016, notification under the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Employees Regula­risation of Service Act, 2018.

Nevertheless, 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 afterwards.

For context, 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.

For context, 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 remarked, adding that since the regularisation was notified in the official gazette afterwards, 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.

Taken together, the developments around administrative delays aren't employees' fault, SC rules point to a situation that is still moving, and the coming days should bring more clarity.