The Supreme Court has ruled that service rendered on a contractual basis cannot be counted as regular government service for promotion, holding that doing so would amount to an incorrect interpretation of the law and effectively confer civil servant status from the very beginning of employment.

The 16-page judgment was authored by Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar.

The court held that contract service cannot be included within the definition of a government servant and, therefore, cannot be counted along with regular service to meet the prescribed length of service required for promotion.

It further held that treating contract service as regular service would effectively grant contract employees civil servant status from the very first day of their appointment.

The SC said such an interpretation would render ineffective the exclusion clauses in both the federal and provincial Civil Servants Acts, which specifically exclude contract employees from the definition of a civil servant.

The judgment stated that the true meaning and scope of the expression “government service” cannot be interpreted beyond the framework of the Civil Servants Acts.

Referring to the Sindh Civil Servants Rules, 1975, the court observed that Rule 10 clearly provides that a civil servant’s seniority is determined from the date of regular appointment.

The court also held that under the Sindh Civil Servants Rules, no appointment can be regularized retrospectively from a remote past date. The ruling came in an appeal filed by Muhammad Saleem Sheikh against a decision of the Sindh Service Tribunal.

The petitioner, a WAPDA employee, requested that his period of contractual service also be counted for promotion. The Sindh Service Tribunal had earlier dismissed his plea seeking to include contract service in the qualifying period for promotion.