Pakistan: Posting a serving military officer as DG means placing the interests of landowner in the hands of the land user

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Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Senator Farhatullah Babar on Tuesday drew house’s attention towards what he said resentment among civilian officers of the military lands department and demanded that the cadre post of Director General of the department should be given back to the civilian officers after the retirement of the incumbent serving general this week. Speaking on a calling attention notice against what he said the appointment of a serving military officer against the slot, he said the continued retention of a civilian cadre post by serving military officers is illegal. “It’s a violation of the Supreme Court’s June 2013 order; a recipe to demoralise and undermine civilian structures and above all a conflict of interests that will bring a bad name to the military institution,” he added.

Babar stated that director general military lands is supposed to watch the interests of the owner of land namely the federal government whereas the military is the user of the land. Posting a serving military officer as DG means placing the interests of landowner in the hands of the land user, he said, adding it is the worst form of conflict of interests that raises many questions. He said that DG is a BS 21 civilian cadre post of the ML&C department and appointments to it are made by the Public Service Commission through CSS exams. The post has been held by civilian officer since 1924 until General Pervez Musharraf took over who appointed a serving military officer in 1999, he added.

He said the Supreme Court has also declared illegal the absorption of a non-civil servant on a civil post and the absorption of a non-cadre civil servant to a cadre post without due process of competitive examination under the recruitment rules. Babar said that in July last year when the defence ministry moved a summary for the appointment of yet another serving army officer to the post of DG the Prime Minister reluctantly agreed on the condition that in future the post would stand reverted to the civilian cadre.

In order to countermand the orders of the then PM and to continue the illagility, he added, it is planned to give extension in service to the incumbent on his retirement due this week. He said that huge irregularities have been committed in changing the use of defence lands for commercial purposes.

“When the previous parliaments agitated the issue the defence ministry secured from the caretaker Prime Minister in 2007 an unprecedented and questionable blanket waiver of all such irregularities,” he claimed. However, minister for defence production Rana Tanveer said the incumbent DG MLC was appointed for a two-year tenure and there will be no such appointment after his term is completed.