This was a batch, not a case. C.P.L.A.52/2022 and its connected petitions — spanning 2022 to 2026, against various Federal Service Tribunal judgments — all concerned office memoranda granting time-scale promotion and upgradation to civil servants. The petitioners were the Federation's various divisions (Establishment, Prime Minister's Office, Finance); the lead respondent was Muhammad Iqbal. The fight was over which O.M.s applied, to whom, and from when.
The Supreme Court — Mr. Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar authoring, with Mr. Justice Irfan Saadat Khan and Mr. Justice Shahid Bilal Hassan — converted the petitions into appeals and, on 15.09.2026, partly allowed them in agreed terms. The judgment confirmed two principles: first, O.M.s granting time-scale promotion must be implemented across the board after examining the eligibility of employees; second, O.M.s curtailing accrued rights cannot operate with retrospective effect to deprive employees on the basis of revised criteria.
The agreed modalities are the operative part: each department will re-examine the eligibility of its employees under the relevant O.M.s and issue speaking orders within three months — and until then, no recovery shall be made from the respondents. The 'no recovery meanwhile' shield matters enormously to employees who have been drawing upgraded pay for years.
For the civil service, this is both sword and shield. The government keeps the right to verify eligibility case by case — across-the-board does not mean automatic — but it cannot quietly claw back years of paid benefits while the verification is pending. And the retrospectivity bar is absolute: revised criteria apply forward. Naye usool purani tankhwah wapas nahi mang sakte — not until a speaking order says otherwise.