Central Selection Board to consider over 600 promotions.

ISLAMABAD -- The Central SelecA!tion Board (CSB) is likely to convene before Eidul Azha to review the promotion of more than 600 bureaucrats to grades BS-19 to BS-21.

Sources in the Establishment Division said the date of the CSB's meeting may be finalised sometime next week. The board will examine 250 bureaucrats from BS-18 to BS-20 of the Pakistan Administration Service (PAS), the Police Service of Pakistan (PSP) and the Secretariat Group. Around 400 officers of other occupational groups will also be considered for promotion.

An official told Dawn that the Career Planning Section of the Establishment Division has shared the details of all officers being considered for promotion with Inter-SerA!viA!ces Intelligence (ISI) and the IntelA!ligence Bureau (IB), as is practice.

It is worth recalling that Prime MiA!A!nA!ister Shehbaz Sharif had recently notified the ISI as the official vetting agency for promotions of civil officers.

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The practice had been in place for about two decades, but the incumbent government gave it legal cover by issuing a formal notification to this effect.

In the past, officers whose promotions were withheld on the basis of adA!A!verse reports from intelligence agencies, had moved the courts to get relief.

In 2015, the superior courts had - noting that intelligence reports had no legal standing - directed the government to promote 20 officers who were promoted by the CSB, but whose promotions were withheld by the then prime minister...