The Supreme Court has ruled that employees who are wrongfully dismissed from service are entitled to receive all past dues, declaring that the denial of back pay after reinstatement is unlawful.
In its detailed judgment, the apex court dismissed government appeals challenging the payment of arrears and ordered that dismissed police officials from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa be paid all outstanding dues within one month.
The verdict was issued by a five-member larger bench of the Supreme Court, with Justice Shahid Waheed authoring the judgment. The court allowed appeals filed by the affected police officials and set aside the decisions of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Service Tribunal, which had earlier refused the payment of past dues.
The judgment opened with a poetic reference, stating that when the sun of justice rises, darkness fades away. The court also cited William Shakespeare, observing that taking away a person’s livelihood is akin to taking away their life.
The Supreme Court held that Article 9 of the Constitution, which guarantees the right to life, also includes protection of employment. It ruled that an employee who is wrongfully dismissed is fully entitled to salary and benefits for the period of unlawful termination.
The court stressed the need to replace a culture of authority with a culture of justification, adding that under Article 10-A of the Constitution, every public official is bound to provide sound, rational and reasonable justification for each decision.
The judgment stated that discretionary powers are a sacred trust and cannot be exercised on the basis of personal likes or dislikes. It added that judicial intervention becomes necessary when decisions are unjust, biased or arbitrary.
The court further ruled that it is sufficient for an employee to state that he or she remained unemployed during the period of dismissal, and the employee should not be forced to prove innocence by running from office to office. The burden of proof, the court said, lies with the department to establish wrongdoing.
It also observed that poor employees cannot be punished for systemic flaws or prolonged litigation delays, and that withholding lawful dues amounts to injustice.
The case arose after several Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police officials were reinstated following their dismissal, but their past salaries and benefits were withheld. The KP Service Tribunal had upheld the police department’s stance that payment of back dues was a matter of discretion.
The police officials argued that once reinstated, they were entitled to all previous dues, while the department maintained that arrears could be denied at the discretion of the competent authority. The Supreme Court rejected this argument and ruled in favour of the employees.
