Formation of a Union in every department is not a bad thing but it should always be used for positive purposes and not for any type of blackmailing. It, therefore, didn’t behove senior bureaucrats to go on a strike a few days back in Panjab to protest against the arrest of one of their colleagues in a mega corruption case. Back in early 1970s, the police had once also gone on a strike for more or less similar reason during the days of ZA Bhutto without succeeding in its objective. Commenting on this episode Zardari accused the government of inciting rebellion inside the bureaucracy to achieve its political objectives and said that a number of senior bureaucrats in Panjab are close relatives of MNAs of the ruling parties who are using them in support of the political objectives of the rulers.
It is the duty of senior bureaucrats to closely scrutinise every fiat of their political masters and in case they find any illegality in it that must be brought in black and white and not implemented. If they fail in this basic duty of theirs and tomorrow they are caught they cannot get away with lightly by telling the court that it wasn’t their order but was that of their minister. Most of them oblige their political bosses by blindly implementing their illegal orders because they fear that in case they annoyed them they might be transferred from the lucrative post they are working on only to be posted as OSD( officer on special duty).
The bureaucrats have completely forgotten the unambiguous directive of the founder of the nation to them that they should be following only law of the land and not the fiats of the sitting government if they are illegal .
It is about time that instead of kicking the dust on the arrest of corrupt senior bureaucrats they should decide that henceforth they would not obey any illegal order of the sitting government. Needless to say the government should make it a point not to make any recruitment or make any appointments on the recommendations of the politicians. This task had better be left to the Services and general Administration of every province.
