ISLAMABAD: Officials from the Information Service Group continue their fight for their right to foreign postings, which they claim has been hijacked by the government to accommodate its blue-eyed people.

After coming to power, the PML-N government decided to fill 20 per cent of the information group`s foreign postings with individuals from the private sector. However, the officials contested that these were cadre posts reserved for them under the service rules and cannot be filled by outsiders.

The Islamabad High Court will again take up the matter on December 15, when the officials will argue their case through their counsel Asma Jahangir.

During the last hearing held on July 13, the ministry had sought an adjournment claiming that the state was revising its decision to make inductions from the private sector.

However, over the last few weeks, the ministry has fast-tracked its selection process.

According to Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Senator Pervez Rashid, the decision to select people from the private sec-tor was to meet the challenging job of the media management abroad.

`People with relevant experience and academic qualifications will be selected through a merit-based criterion, hence no one should be worrie d, he said.

The ministry has now decided to conduct tests through the National Testing Service (NTS) for short-listing candidates from the private sector, and has also asked the ministry officials to appear in the test in order to be posted abroad.

But one ofhcial called the decision `sheer humiliation` `First of all, these are cadre posts.

Secondly, NTS is only meant for preliminary level section processes whereas we have joined this service through the rigorous CSS examinations and [have been J in the job for the past a decade and a half,` the official said.

He also asked why the government hasn`t extended the same rule of 20 per cent cadre posts to the customs and inland revenue group which also had a fixed number of postings in foreign missions.

When asked, a senior ministry official said previous governments both civilian and dictatorships had accommodated people of their choice as ministers in foreign missions and no one knew why the PML-N wanted to fix the quota at 20 per cent. `Someone influential and close to the prime minister has worked out this scheme.

The official said the only `charm` for the information service group was postings at the country`s embassies and high commissions around the world. He said with this kind of decision making, the government would further marginalise its scope in the eyes of the youth aspiring to join the civil service.

The Information Group Officers Association (IGOA) also held a general body meeting on December 3 and pledged to fight for their right at the departmental and legal levels.

In the name of austerity measures, the ministry`s foreign postings have already been reduced from 27 to 23 and will be reduced further if 20 per cent of the postings are held for outsiders, added an IGOA office-bearer.