The Higher Education Commission (HEC) has clarified that its BPS-15 to BPS-17 employees serving in the same scale for around a decade or more regularly receive promotions under the commission’s laws. So far, such promotions have been granted 3 times in the past; in 2003, 2004, and 2013 respectively as per rules.
The HEC in its 1st meeting held in December 2002 delegated powers to the Chairperson HEC that “the Chairperson shall be competent to create, re-designate and upgrade posts on the recommendations of the Finance Planning (FP) Committee as per the authority laid down in the HEC Service Rules” notified vide notification number 19-2/HEC/Admin/2002/257 dated February 26, 2003.
Same powers were delegated to the Executive Director HEC notified vide notification number 19-2/HEC/Admin/2002/ 257 dated February 26, 2003, under para 3 which states that “the Executive Director shall be competent to create, re-designate and upgrade posts on the recommendations of the Finance Planning Committee as per the authority laid down in the HEC Service Rule.”
Employees who are stuck in the same cadre for long i.e ranging from 9 to 13 years of service in the same grade, had submitted their requests for promotion. Consequently, a departmental committee was constituted to thoroughly examine the matter and give its recommendations to the Finance and Planning Committee of HEC on merit. HEC Senior Officers viz. 2 Advisers and 4 DGs including DG (Finance) and In-Charge were part of the Committee.
The Committee met multiple times during the period of 3-4 months to examine the matter in line with set procedures. Hence, after having been fully satisfied, the committee, endorsed the promotion of employees of different cadres who were either stuck in the same scale or have no career path in service till their retirement.
As per the procedure framed by the Commission, the matter was placed before the Finance Planning Committee. Deputy Financial Adviser, Finance Division, GoP, and JS, M/O Education were also members of the committee. The committee approved the recommendations of the HEC Committees for the promotion of such employees. As both external members endorsed the case, the allegation that external members showed their concerns is also incorrect.
Consequently, on the recommendations of the Departmental Promotion Committee and subsequent approval thereof by appointing authority viz Chairperson, HEC or the Executive Director, HEC, as the case may be, as defined in HEC Recruitment Rules, promotion of such cadre employees working in BPS-15-17 who were stuck since long, have been granted higher scale by fulfilling all the requirements and observing relevant rules/policy framed by the Commission and notified in the Gazette of Pakistan. No employee from BPS-18 and above, where Commission is the appointing authority, has been promoted in this way.
