Initially constituted in February 1974 through an Office Memorandum (OM) of the Establishment Division, the DMG drew its primary membership from the Civil Service of Pakistan (CSP) besides some elements drawn from a host of sources and services (Para of the OM 2/2/74/ARC dated 17 February 1974). The CSP is a subsisting All-Pakistan Service, established in November 1950 in pursuance of an inter-provincial agreement, and had subsumed Pakistan Administrative Service (PAS), the short lived successor to the Erstwhile Indian Civil Service (ICS) that had in turn incorporated some elements of what was known to be the General Administrative Reserve(GAR) raised during Second World War in addition to listed post holders from the Provincial Civil Service (Executive Branch).  All  these elements had been integrated into one unified cadre in 1947. In late 1981,Tribal Areas Group, earlier constituted in October 1973, also through an OM, as an All Pakistan Service Group, was merged with the 1974 version of the DMG to compose the present second generation service entity. The TAG was composed of CSP officers inducted from the armed forces in yesteryears, provincial political & Revenue services officers from Balochistan and the NWFP.

The 1949 agreement was enforced through an 8th November 1950 Cabinet Resolution ( no F.25/4/50-Ests(SE1). Thereafter, extensive consultations ensued amongst the federating units and a formal framework was developed and epitomized as constitutional Rules, notified by the Establishment Division in the Cabinet Secretariat vide No.F.25/12/51-SE1 on 21 June 1954, in terms of the enabling provisions of Section 241 of the 1935 Act. At the relevant time, the latter had the status of Provisional Constitution of the newly born state adopted on 12 August 1947, with certain adaptations. The agreement could be modified with the consent of the federating units, but was not open to challenge by or before any forum except a signatory competent to invoke the advisory jurisdiction of the Federal, later Supreme Court of Pakistan.

The concept design of the DMG is thus rooted in the CSP, one of the two subsisting All-Pakistan Services, the other being the PSP, composed and created as fiction of the Constitutional in pursuance of two inter-provincial agreements arrived at the Premier's Conference held on 26 December 1949, later ratified by the federal and provincial Cabinets. It needs to be noted that the Objectives Resolution was also approved at the same conference. A major in-road into provincial autonomy incorporated in the 1935 Act had thus been agreed to, and willingly sanctified by the successive constitutions, including the unanimously approved 1973 constitution (Explanation to Article 240).

Until August 1973, all matters relating to structures of service institutions as well the terms and conditions of its membership were regulated by the principles laid down by constitution itself; no statute had been enacted for that purpose. The CSP Resolution/Agreement also covered both the structure of the Service as well as basic terms & conditions of service; unlike the ICS, it was contemplated as centralized service. Its substantive covenants entrusted day to day administration & management to the Governor General(GG), later President, on behalf of the provinces to which the officers would be assigned for performing the agreed functions. However, as per the relevant federal cabinet decisions, the title of the Service was determined with prior consultations with the service membership.Key principles to regulate methods & sources of appointments on domicile-based merit determined on the basis of country-wide equal opportunity competitive examinations, had been clearly laid down. According to a 1992 Supreme Court judgment, the service had been created by Allah Almighty in Heavens and with his own hands. All matters spelt out in the agreement excepting the rules regulating training, probation & seniority, were to be determined with mutual consultations of the contracting parties.

In line with the above, Pakistan Public Service Commission conceived as an autonomous constitutional agency was designated to advise Federal Government in all matters relating to appointments, whether by initial recruitment, transfer or promotions against specified & defined posts described in the schedule appended to the Agreement, the disciplinary matters of service membership, as also determination of litigation expenses incurred by an officer in service related litigation.

A perusal of 759 posts specified for CSP, as amended in 1966, would show the extent to which the federating units had voluntarily surrendered their Autonomy; the CSP agreement also contemplated significant departures from the concepts of 'Division of Powers' and 'Separation of Powers'. With some specified exceptions, the schedule posts were required to be manned by Service membership. There was however a quid pro quo: being custodian of the Service, the GG was expected to uphold the substantives covenants for rule-based management for good governance, in public interest.

The service membership was drawn from a number of sources, without compromising its merit. Within carefully crafted structures, the core group strength was derived from top selectees from the FPSC annual examinations whereas officers from the two Provincial Civil services(Judicial and Executive branches), members of the Bar and officers from the armed forces were also appointed to it; specific quota had been prescribed from every source. The Service membership thus blended offered its best from at least five sources with such a varied background, from within regularly constituted services as well as open market. The numbers of posts, and the sources of filling the vacancies through initial recruitment, transfer and promotion besides temporary assignments not exceeding one year, had been specified, with no room for any ambiguity or backdoor entry.

In 1965, following a decision in a 1956 Writ Petition filed by a PCS officer asserting his right to appointment as a District Judge, Act XXI was enacted on the initiative of the Supreme Court and High Court dully endorsed by the executive and legislative branches at the federal and Provincial levels to operationalize the constitutional command with respect to selection and appointment of High Court Judges: The CSP was notified as the Service qualifying for such appointments from one of the three sources described by Article 78 of the 1962 Constitution. In 1967, Act XVI was promulgated, to empower the President to determine the principles for apportionment of Provincial posts amongst the members of the Service and Provincial Executive & Judicial Civil Services. No doubt could be entertained on the rights & obligations flowing from the basic agreement, much less those impinging upon the eligibility for judicial appointments.

Excluding the periods of constitutional deviations, generally, till late August 1973, the federating units generally observed their respective constitutional obligations. Attempts made to bye-pass the FPSC mechanism were frustrated and contained. However, beginning, 21August 1973, and despite constitutional & statutory recognition of the service institution, to date, the Establishment Division unleashed an arbitrary campaign focused at disintegrating its elite character through executive instruments ex-facie inconsistent with its trustee obligation. Not only that it modified the fundamental Covenants to bye-pass the FPSC in future, it opened floodgates of political patronage to undo the FPSC allocations during two preceding decades at least. The core membership was demoralized nay humiliated since March 1969 as summary dismissals and arbitrary removals became order of the day. Fundamental covenants were also modified without regard to attendant implication for future of the federation without reflecting any sensitivity to the self respect or professional standing of the service membership. The agreement was unilaterally tempered & amended through subservient rule making powers derived from a hurriedly drafted Civil Servants Ordinance, introduced on 15 August 1973,with no nexus or relevance to service structures or principles for their managements. During this phase, Office Memoranda became to be the norm to create new All Pakistan Service entities with the same ease with which subsisting Service institutions were defaced, and all under the cover of reforms: What Constitution had mandated to be done 'by an Act of Parliament' was accomplished through executive actions otherwise inconsistent with the 1949 agreement and instruments issued under an irrelevant statute. The 1974 OM on DMG is one such executive instrument.

The three sacrosanct principles, namely exclusive role of FPSC as a neutral agency designated to make recommendations for appointments, its marginalization nay dis-association from advising the President on qualification for and methods of appointment in line with the FPSC Ordinance 1973 were ignored with contempt. The PFSC was not consulted in matters relating to principles for transfer from one service to the other, promotions, disciplinary proceedings and payment of litigation expenses. Specific provisions regulating apportionment of provincial & Federal posts amongst competing claims, sanctity of the description of posts or methods & sources of appointments thereto  had all been done away with. By mid-September 1973, the Service Nomenclature was also substituted with APUG, a title shared with the PSP similarly treated at least till October 1985 when its substantive title and structures were restored after extensive manipulation in the seniorities.

What was hitherto regulated by constitution based rule-framework was arrogated by and for the executive will & subjective discretion to determine, with far reaching implications for the very future of good governance and the state. The importance of Law & Order was undermined as institutional linkages conceived and built in by the founding fathers to bind the various constitutional organs were abolished; the wheels were retained but the tie-rod was dispensed with without creating a viable and efficacious alternate institution on ground. THE FPSC expected to do the whistle blowing assumed golden silence despite its statutory mandate; at the relevant time, it was Chaired by a retired Judge of High Court still pursuing in Supreme Court his appeal against the 1964 dismissal of his Writ Petition as his Counsel had also done appropriate ground work, as Federal Law Minister.

The situation did not change much after the 1977 military take over. On the other hand, not satisfied with what damage had been inflicted by then, in 1981, Act XVI of 1967 was repealed without any justification, to generate an unending confusion with respect to sharing of provincial posts between the DMG and provincial services. However, it needs to be noted that Act XXI of 1965 that regulates appointments of service officers as High Court Judges remains on the statute book; in fact in early 1988, after the expiry of constitutional extended deadline for separation of judiciary from the executive, the Act was amended to declare that the DMG was the service that qualifies for appointment as High Court Judges.  Despite that legislative initiative, the operationalization of this statute remains in abeyance for the last 31 years. As direct consequence, the composition of the superior Courts has been distorted.

The first generation DMG was thus born and created by an executive fiat: amazingly, the first group of DMG officers took their FPSC examination inter alia for appointments to the CSP as their top choice; however, by the time their selections were finalized from out of what is known as the 'First Common', they ended up as the first DMG batch as the de-facto successors to the CSP, without any diminution of the CSP clout. According to an authoritative opinion rendered by a former Law Secretary, Mr. Justice Aslam Nasir Zahid in 1989-1990, and endorsed by the then Attorney General, late Mr. Yahya Bakhtiar, in the absence of a parliamentary statute to create a new All-Pakistan Service to date, the OM that created the DMG was an executive instrument that supplements & elucidates certain aspects of subsisting 1954 Agreement; in case of any conflict between the two, the latter Agreement would hold the ground.

Those of us who may wish to pursue the matter in some depth, may note that the concept of Occupational Groups is alien to the Constitution and the validly made service laws that recognize Federal, Provincial and All-Pakistan Services institutions and posts created in connection with the affairs of a province or federation, with a caveat that while an All-Pakistan service could only be created 'by an Act of Parliament', other service entities & posts may be created or abolished by executive actions, in public interest. Presently, except one out of eleven Services of the federation i.e. Foreign Service of Pakistan, all other Services are titled as Occupational Groups; Likewise, one of the two All-Pakistan Services is classified as managed as a service while the other is treated as a Group; that is ex-facie discriminatory both in law and practice.

Those interested to pursue the subject in detail may wish to refer amongst others, to the following legal instruments: