‘Transferring Karachi police chief to Centre not possible as Sindh facing shortage of officers’

Sindh Chief Secretary Mumtaz Ali Shah has confirmed that he has written a letter to Cabinet Secretariat, Establishment Division, Islamabad, in which he has informed the federal authorities that the province is already short of police officers and it is not possible for the provincial government to transfer Karachi Additional Inspector General of Police Ghulam Nabi Memon to Islamabad under the rotation policy.

Talking The News on Wednesday, Shah said the Sindh government would consider transferring officers when it had a good strength of officers for the province. A day earlier, talking to media persons at the mausoleum of the Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah on the occasion of Pakistan Day, Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah had said that according to an agreement between the province and the federation, the transfer of any government servant to or from the province should take place after mutual consultation between the federal and provincial governments.

He said any rotation policy for posting or transferring officers of the All Pakistan Unified Services to or from the province should also be adopted by the Centre after consulting with the relevant provincial government. The CM also said he and the relevant departments of his government have written to the Centre that the services of certain officers were required by the province, so they cannot be released by his government on Islamabad’s request.

He pointed out that his provincial government had earlier released some of the officers after they had received such a request by the federal government.

Centre’s letter

On Sunday, the federal government had sent another letter to the Sindh government, asking for the transfer of Karachi police chief Ghulam Nabi Memon under the rotation policy.

The letter was dispatched to the provincial chief secretary by the Cabinet Secretariat, Establishment Division, Islamabad, using powers of the Rotation Policy 2020. The correspondence says the Rotation Policy 2020 envisages that a BS-21 officer can be transferred from any government and posted to any other government, keeping in view the exigency of governance, and the Establishment Division transfers PSP officers from one government to the other so as to equip them with diverse experience and to ensure equitable distribution to all federating units.

It further reads: “Mr. Ghulam Nabi Memon (PSP/BS-21) was placed at the disposal of the Government of Sindh while serving in Intelligence Bureau (IB) vide a notification dated May 22, 2019. Prior thereto, he served under the Government of Sindh and within the geographical limits of Sindh for nearly sixteen years of his service.

“Services of Mr. Ghulam Nabi Memon are required by the Establishment Division for assignments in the Federal Government. It may be emphasized that it will be beneficial for the officer, as for promotion to BS-22, attributes of diverse experience and well-rotated service are considered to be important benchmarks.

“Therefore, considering the officer’s extensive tenure in the Government of Sindh, his promotion aspects may get affected. Furthermore, this Division has recently promoted PSP officers and there is one BS-21 officer over and above the number of vacancies in the Government of Sindh. In order to adjust the recently promoted PSP officers, a BS-21 PSP officer needs to be transferred out of Sindh.”

In view of the above, the letter says, the Establishment Division intends to utilise the services of Memon in the federal government.

Officials in Sindh government say they have gone through the request moved by the federal government under the Rotation Policy 2020, as well as the promotion reference which they have mentioned about BS-21. However, they say, two officers are going to retire this year: one two weeks from now and the officer about three months later. After the retirement of these two officers, the Sindh government will again face a shortfall of senior officers.

They say that as far as Additional Inspector General of Police Ghulam Nabi Memon is concerned, he has not been working for long under the Sindh government, but he had served the Intelligence Bureau (IB), a federal unit, for more than eight years, including three years posted in London, UK. Moreover, he had also served for a year at the Frontier Constabulary, including in Punjab. In the year 2019 his services had been placed at the disposal of the Sindh government. Moreover, at this period of critical time when some important tasks have been assigned to Memon by the Sindh government, it is not possible to transfer him, say the officials.

They say they will send a reply to the federal government in the coming weeks, and that they are not considering transferring the Karachi police chief. Earlier, a story was published in The News about the Rotation Policy and officers selected on pick-and-choose basis. A petition was also filed in the provincial high court, which issued a stay order.

Official sources said on Sunday that the Rotation Policy says, “Once an officer has been compulsorily rotated under this policy and posted to a particular government, then: male officer shall not return to the government of his previous ten-year posting before completing two years at the stations of his posting situated outside of the geographical limits of government of his ten-year posting, provided that the period spent on OSD, earned leave, study leave, training, deputation shall not be counted towards these too years and one year respectively.”

The Rotation Policy further says officers who have served continuously for 10 years or more in any of the governments will be transferred to other governments in three phases spanning over six months each and starting with officers who have longest tenures in a government.

Least rotated transferred first To meet any further shortage, officers can be rotated even before the completion of ten years’ continuous service in a government on the principle of the ‘least rotated transferred first’.

The least rotated will be calculated as on the basis of the time spent posted outside the government in which the officer has served the longest. That officer will be transferred first who has the lowest percentage of time spent posted outside the government in which the officer has served the longest in relation to his total length of service.

The time spent by an officer on a post of the federal government located within the geographical limits of the provincial and other governments will be counted towards computing his service in that provincial and other government.