FIA legal section officers want sanctioned seats rectified

KARACHI: Three most senior officers from the legal section of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) have formally approached the Secretary of the Ministry of Interior, seeking to rectify the number of sanctioned seats for the position of Director Law ahead of the upcoming Central Selection Board (CSB).

The officers — Additional Directors (Law) Masood Naseem, Bakhtiar Channa, and Abdur Rehman Afridi —submitted a written representation asserting that the FIA Legal Group operates as a distinct entity alongside the Investigation, Forensic, and Administration groups. They emphasised that the position of Director Law, classified as Grade 20, is a 100 percent promotional seat, governed by FIA’s Appointment, Promotion, and Transfer (APT) Rules 2014, which prohibit changes in group or cadre and maintain a separate seniority list.

In their appeal, the officers pointed out that, according to credible information, the FIA’s Human Resources Management (HRM) Wing is set to forward a synopsis to the CSB indicating only one sanctioned seat for Director Law. They contended that this is incorrect, asserting that the true number of sanctioned seats is four, all currently vacant.

The officers highlighted that one of these seats was established at the FIA's inception in 1975, with the additional three created during the agency's restructuring in 2018, a change that was duly approved by the Prime Minister of Pakistan. They noted that the previous two CSBs in 2020 and 2021 accurately recorded the number of sanctioned posts and vacancies as four in all working papers.

Citing the established distribution of posts between the Police Service of Pakistan (PSP) and FIA officers, with a ratio of 70 percent-30 percent respectively, the officers requested the Secretary to ensure the correct representation of four sanctioned seats for the upcoming CSB. They stressed the importance of this correction to safeguard the promotion opportunities for eligible officers and protect the interests of the FIA Legal Group from potential irreparable loss.

The outcome of this request may have significant implications for the upcoming CSB and the careers of law officers within the FIA. Law officers concluded that the above scheme has been launched by the investigation team of the Agency to adjust their investigation officers as presently none of the seats is vacant in BS 20 against the said group. Further one officer quoted that from time to time officers other than law groups are being adjusted against APT rules and the Supreme Court principles set in the Sultan Mehmudcase reported in 1998’s Supreme Court Monthly Review (SCMR) 2482. Besides the written submission to the Secretary, Law Officers also appealed to the Interior Minister for intervention and justice to the law group of the Agency (FIA).