KARACHI, Jan 18: A division bench of Sindh High Court adjourned the hearing of a petition challenging out-of-turn promotions in the police department to Jan 26 for comments by the provincial government.

As the petition, moved by 50 police officers through Advocate Khalid Jawed Khan, came up for hearing before the bench, Additional Advocate-General M. Ahmed Pirzada submitted that it agitated service matters, which were outside the purview of the high courts in exercise of their civil or extraordinary jurisdiction. He said Article 212 conferred exclusive powers on the service tribunals, appeals against whose decisions could be preferred only in the Supreme Court.

Advocate Khan argued that the matter involved the vested rights of the petitioners and requested the bench, which consisted of Justices Ghulam Rabbani and Zia Pervez to pass an interim order restraining the provincial government from making more out-of-turn promotions pending the proceedings.

Advocates Rasheed A. Razvi, Abdul Hafeez Lakho, Z K Jatoi, Gohar Iqbal, Shafi Rajput and Khwaja Naveed Ahmed, meanwhile, filed their powers of attorney on behalf the respondent police officers. The AAG requested more time for filing comments on behalf of the provincial government. The bench was informed that the provincial police officer could not be served notice. It directed that the notice be served and put off further hearing to Jan 26.

BY-ELECTION: The bench also issued a notice to the Election Commission of Pakistan for Jan 24 in a writ petition moved by Mir Ghalib Khan Domki of PML (Q) through Advocate Raza Hashmi. The petitioner submitted that he polled the highest number of votes in the Dec 10, 2005, by-election in NA-210 (Jacobabad-III). The seat fell vacant following the election of the incumbent MNA as district nazim.