KARACHI, Dec 22: The provincial education department has challenged the Sindh High Court judgment, against ban on teachers’ associations, in the Supreme Court. The department says that the petitions by Sindh Professors and Lecturers Association and other organisations of teachers involved interpretation of constitutional provisions but were decided without issuing notice to the attorney-general.
Besides, the observation made by the SHC division bench that ‘‘ex facie denial of a right to form associations and unions to a particular class of persons in one province while dealing with the situation of a country being threatened by external aggression’’ as emergency could be imposed to meet a financial crisis, internal disturbances and failure of constitutional machinery.
Advocate Khalid Anwar, who contested the petitions in the high court, would be appearing for the appellant department in the Supreme Court.
LEAVE GRANTED: An SC bench comprising Justices Abdul Hamid Dogar and Ghulam Rabbani granted leave to appeal against six high court judgments holding that the director of customs intelligence was not empowered to move appeals on behalf of the customs department under Section 196 of the Customs Act.
The appellant department submitted through Advocate Rana M. Shamim that Section 3-A of the Customs Act has since been amended to authorise the intelligence director in this behalf.
Notifications empowering the director have already been issued, he stated.
The bench granted leave to consider the common point involved in the six petitions.
