KARACHI: Reinstated nazims may resume work on 27th
By Shujaat Ali Khan
KARACHI, May 24: The reinstated nazims and deputy nazims of Larkana, Jacobabad, Dadu and Mirpurkhas will resume their offices on May 27 afternoon if no order to the contrary is passed by the Supreme Court by Friday forenoon, the Sindh High Court declared on Tuesday.
No budgetary provision shall be made by the district government or council nor a council session convened for the purpose during the three-day period, a division bench comprising Justices Sarmad Jalal Osmany and Zia Pervez observed after hearing Advocate-General Anwar Mansoor Khan and Advocate Raheed A. Razvi, counsel for the petitioner nazims and deputy nazims.
No action prejudicial to the petitioners’ interest would be taken in the meanwhile, it said. Vehemently opposing any extension of stay in favour of the provincial government or further suspension of the bench’s verdict in favour of reinstatement, Mr Razvi said the bench had already granted the respondent government sufficient time to challenge the judgment and seek its suspension from the Supreme Court.
The petitioners, who had waited for four months, he said, should not be allowed to suffer for the respondent’s failure or inability. In any case, they had already resumed charge before the extension of stay on May 21 afternoon after the lapse of 10-day suspension.
He requested the bench not to suspend the operation of its order further and instead accept his undertaking that the petitioners would not perform their substantive functions for another three days. The rule of law, he argued, should take precedence over the rule of propriety. Advocate Razvi said the petitioners’ offices had belatedly been sealed after their resumption of their duties.
He complained that the respondent, which had not cared to summon the district councils for four months, had suddenly scheduled council meetings for May 26 and the petitioners apprehended that they might be converted into budget sessions.
The bench observed that though it had reinstated the petitioners in accordance with the law, the Supreme Court might take a different view. When a matter was before the apex court, propriety demanded that the high court should exercise restraint and facilitate final adjudication of the matter.
The delay, as explained by the AG, did not occur due to any indolence on the respondent’s part. The petitioners had waited for four months and they would suffer no irreparable loss if they waited for three days more. If they had taken charge as stated, there was no cause of grievance, it said.
AG Anwar Mansoor Khan earlier explained that a petition for leave to appeal was filed with the Supreme Court’s Karachi registry on May 13, that is, within three days of the delivery of the impugned judgment.
He was told that an application for urgent hearing could be entertained only by the chief justice but since the CJ was coming to Karachi, he (the AG) need not go to Islamabad. Quite a few days later, however, he was informed that the CJ had changed his programme and was not coming to Karachi. He was, therefore, rushing to Islamabad immediately after the court proceedings on Tuesday, he said.
The AG submitted that the delay was unavoidable and he could undertake on behalf the government that no adverse action against the petitioners would be taken in the meanwhile. There was no plan to call the district councils in session to consider budgetary provisions, he assured the bench.
