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| February 17, 2006 | Friday | Muharram 18, 1427 |
SC accepts FPSC chief’s plea: Cut in tenure
ISLAMABAD, Feb 16: The Supreme Court on Wednesday accepted the joint appeal of chairman and four members of the Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC) and held that its registrar had no authority to pre-empt a decision on a petition challenging curtailment of their service tenure from five to three years through an ordinance.
A three-member bench comprising acting Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Rana Bhagwandas, Justice Saiyed Saeed Ashhad and Justice Nasirul Mulk unanimously ruled that the order of the registrar was not sustainable.
The court also directed the office to register the petition and after numbering the same fix it for regular hearing before any available bench. The petition is likely to come up for hearing next week.
Earlier, the registrar of the court had returned a joint petition of FPSC Chairman Lt-Gen Jamshaid Gulzar Kiani and its four members — Gul Hanif, Justice (retired) Abdur Rehman Khan, Javed Akram and Tariq Saeed Haroon — with an objection that both the president and the prime minister enjoyed protection under Article 248 of the Constitution and, therefore, they could not be impleaded as respondent parties in the petition.
In their main petition, they had challenged the order of Justice Mian Hamid Farooq of the Lahore High Court’s Rawalpindi bench who had disposed of their case with a direction to file an amended petition by deleting the names of President General Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz as respondents.
Counsel of the petitioners Mohammad Akram Sheikh argued before the Supreme Court bench that the January 31, 2006, order of the registrar was beyond the pale of his authority who could not overreach the authority of the Supreme Court by holding that the petition was not maintainable in view of the bar contained in Article 248 of the Constitution.
“This issue has also been assailed through a petition, therefore, only the apex court under Article 185 of the Constitution was empowered to render a decision and not any of the functionaries in the office.”
The counsel also cited two judgments of the apex court which had held that the principle making the impleadment of designated functionaries under Article 248 of the Constitution was mandatory.
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