December 20, 2008	Saturday	Zilhaj 21, 1429

ISLAMABAD, Dec 19: The Supreme Court threw out on Friday a petition seeking to stop a parliamentary standing committee from probing the issue of additional marks given to a daughter of Chief Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar in a higher secondary school examination.

With the rejection of the petition, the stay granted earlier by Justice Syed Zawwar Hussain Jaffery of the Supreme Court restraining the committee from probing the matter stood vacated.

“Don’t get observations from us, otherwise whenever a parliamentary committee will call somebody, he will rush to court,” a three-member bench comprising Justice Faqir Mohammad Khokhar, Justice M. Javed Buttar and Justice Chaudhry Ejaz Yousaf observed while dismissing the petition filed by a former chairman of the Federal Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education, Commodore (retd) Shamshad.

Later Justice Khokhar, in a six-page detailed judgment, answered questions raised during the hotly-debated controversy over parliament’s privilege and conceded that although the judiciary never claimed supremacy over parliament, it also had a constitutional duty to uphold the independence of judiciary and rule of law. “The legislature, executive and judiciary are enjoined by the Constitution to perform their functions and discharge their duties within the limits set by the Constitution and the law,” he observed.

“At last everybody has to acknowledge what we are pleading on the supremacy of parliament and its committees,” Chairman of the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Education, Abid Sher Ali, said while talking t Dawn.

The judgment said: “The existence and extent of a privilege of the House were matters determined judicially only by a court of law by exercising its power of judicial review. The mere assertion by the House or its committee that it has a certain privilege is not conclusive and the same has to be established before court of law. But once the same is established, the courts are required to stay their hands off ungrudgingly.

“The proceedings, by a court or the parliament or its committees are not to be taken in a manner which may lead to unnecessary confrontation and chaos.”

Citing relevant provisions of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the National Assembly, the order said: “The rules seem to have been wisely introduced with a view to avoiding any conflict or encroachment with the exercise of judicial power which cannot be taken away or abridged in any manner.

“In the absence of any material on record, it is neither possible nor desirable for the court at this stage to go into the question of bias or mala fides of the chairman of the standing committee.”

The court discouraged the counsel for the petitioner from attributing mala fide to the committee, advising him to approach the Islamabad High Court already seized with the main controversy, by moving a proper petition as he had come to the apex court prematurely and in a hurry.

The court asked the petitioner whether he could move the court after a verbal refusal by a clerk.

Raja Abdur Rehman, counsel for Commodore Shamshad, told the court he had moved the petition after his application seeking to implead the standing committee as a party and stay the committee proceedings was rejected by the IHC office.

Comdr Shamshad had contended that as chairman of the board he had dealt with and disposed of the application of Farah Hameed Dogar in accordance with the rules.

“Since the candidate happens to be the daughter of a judicial dignitary, certain ‘mischievous’ elements have maligned the petitioner by blowing the entire issue out of proportion.”

He alleged that the chairman of the standing committee, who was a relative of PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif, had started a parallel proceeding by converting the committee into a judicial forum in disregard of the fact that the matter was before a high court.