The Supreme Court has ruled that employees cannot be made to suffer on account of delays in the publication of official notifications. A two-member bench, comprising Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar and Justice Musarrat Hilali, delivered its verdict in a service matter involving Sahibzada Hassan Ali and Others vs The Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa through Chief Secretary, Peshawar, and Others, along with connected cases involving Khan Ghalib, Sana Ullah, Atta Ullah Khan, and others.

The petitioners had filed civil appeals challenging the judgment dated 12 September 2025, passed by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Service Tribunal. The employees in question had been appointed to project posts in 2016 and were subsequently regularised under the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Employees Regularisation of Service Act, 2018, with effect from 7 March 2018. Although the regularisation notifications were published in the official Gazette only on 21 August 2024, they were expressly made retrospective to 7 March 2018.

Based on this, their seniority was determined in accordance with Section 6 of the Act, and seniority lists were accordingly issued. However, the Service Tribunal later set aside the seniority list, holding that the employees could not be treated as regular civil servants until the Gazette publication in 2024. After a detailed hearing, the Supreme Court allowed the civil appeals, set aside the tribunal's judgment, and restored the petitioners' seniority to its original position.

"An employee cannot be made a victim or scapegoat merely because of a delay in publication," observed the court in a 13-page written judgment authored by Justice Mazhar. The court further observed that established service law jurisprudence clearly dictates that an employee ought not to suffer due to administrative procrastination, bureaucratic inefficiency, systemic delays, or departmental oversights, while ensuring compliance with good governance.