Supreme Court revives teacher back-benefits case

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court has overturned a Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Service Tribunal ruling and directed the relevant authorities to re-examine a reinstated school teacher’s claim for back benefits under Fundamental Rule 54 after he was acquitted in a criminal case.

The judgment was authored by Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar and was issued by a bench that also included Chief Justice of Pakistan Yahya Afridi in a civil appeal arising from a 2019 decision of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Service Tribunal’s Swat Camp Court. The court held that where an employee is honourably acquitted of criminal charges, he is entitled to full pay and service-related benefits for the period of absence, subject to a lawful determination by the competent authority.

The appellant, Mian Abdul Saeed, was serving as a Secondary School Teacher in BPS-17 at Government High School Gokand in District Buner. According to the case record, he was suspended on December 31, 2012 after being named in an FIR registered under Sections 302, 324, 147, 148 and 149 of the Pakistan Penal Code. He was later convicted by an additional district judge in Buner on December 19, 2013, and was subsequently removed from service on July 6, 2015.

That conviction was later set aside when the Peshawar High Court acquitted him on December 11, 2017. Following the acquittal, Saeed sought reinstatement along with restoration of back benefits. The department reinstated him through an order dated April 19, 2018, but declined to grant back benefits and treated the intervening period as leave without pay.

Tribunal ruling challenged

Saeed then approached the service tribunal, which partly accepted his appeal but maintained the refusal of back benefits and treated the period in question as leave of the kind due. He subsequently moved the Supreme Court.

At the leave stage, the apex court examined whether a civil servant who has been honourably acquitted in criminal proceedings is entitled to full back benefits under FR 54. During the proceedings, counsel for the appellant argued that once a civil servant is acquitted, he should receive full salary and benefits as though he had never been removed from service.

The appellant’s lawyer further contended that the removal order had been based solely on the conviction and that no departmental inquiry had been conducted. On that basis, the denial of back benefits was argued to be contrary to the Fundamental Rules and without lawful justification.

On behalf of the provincial government, the additional advocate general for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa argued that the appellant had not actually performed duties during the intervening period and therefore was not entitled to back benefits. He also maintained that the period had correctly been treated as leave without pay, and submitted that under Section 17 of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Civil Servants Act, 1973, the competent authority had discretion in the matter of granting arrears.

Supreme Court findings

After reviewing the record, the Supreme Court noted that the appellant had first been suspended following his arrest and was later removed from service after his conviction. It then set aside the tribunal’s judgment and ordered the authorities to reconsider the matter of back benefits in light of the law governing cases of reinstatement after acquittal.