NAWAB ALI vs NATIONAL HIGHWAY AUTHORITY Ss — 2025 PLC(CS) 783 ISLAMABAD

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NAWAB ALI VS NATIONAL HIGHWAY AUTHORITY Ss. 13 & 14---National Highway Authority (Service) Rules, 1995, R.3---National Highway Authority (Appointment and Promotion) Rules, 1995, R.12(1)---Civil service---Contract employees of National Highway Authority (NHA)---Regularization---Litigation between regular employees and contract employees---Creation of independent cadre for contract employees---Legality---Authority of Cabinet Sub-Committee to issue directive for regularization of contract employees---Scope---Policy making authority of NHA---Scope---Long service of contract employees as an equitable consideration---Contention of the regular employees was that the contract employees could not be regularized as they had been appointed in breach of requirement of the NHA Act and Rules made thereunder---Validity---Absence of a written test in the initial appointment of some contractual employees of the (NHA) was not a fatal flaw precluding their regularization after serving for over a decade, especially when their educational qualifications and experience were not in question---Executive Board of NHA, guided by the National Highway Council, was the competent authority to formulate policies regarding the regularization of its contractual employees, as per the NHA Act---Decisions of the Cabinet Sub-Committee directing the regularization of employees in statutory bodies like NHA were without legal authority---It was for the Executive Board guided by the National Highway Council to make policy decision with regard to the regularization of contract employees and in doing so NHA could seek guidance from policies of the Federal Government in view of Ss.13 & 14 of the NHA Act, whereby the legislature had vested the authority to make appointments and prescribe the terms and conditions of service in the Executive Board subject to approval of the National Highway Council---It was for NHA to make such policy decision with regard to its human resource and not the Federal Government---Rule 3 of the NHA (Service) Rules, 1995, to the extent it granted the Federal Government the power to issue instruction to NHA with regard to creation of permanent or temporary posts or abolish the same, such rule was inconsistent with Ss. 13 & 14 of the NHA Act and must be read down and interpreted accordingly---Employees did not have a vested right in a particular organizational structure or human resource policy, provided their legitimate rights and terms and conditions of service were not detrimentally affected by policy changes---State cannot distribute jobs as largesse without a transparent and competitive recruitment process, as this violates the principles of public trust and equal opportunity---Long service of the contractual employees constituted an equitable consideration in favor of their regularization, rendering a requirement for a current written test as placing form over substance---Creation of a new cadre (NSSC) by NHA to accommodate regularized contractual employees without disturbing the seniority of regularly appointed employees was a valid policy decision---High Court found that the order of the Supreme Court had been duly executed by NHA qua regularization of contract employees and the decision of Cabinet Sub-Committee was held to be illegal---Executive Board and the National Highway Council had committed themselves not to induct any contractual employees without complying with all steps of the process prescribed by the NHA Act and Rules framed thereunder as such appointments could only be made against already sanctioned posts, thus, the manner in which contractual employees had been regularized could not be treated as a precedent to be emulated in future---Constitutional petitions were disposed of accordingly.

NAWAB ALI vs NATIONAL HIGHWAY AUTHORITY Ss — 2025 PLC(CS) 783 ISLAMABAD

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