PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court was informed on Wednesday that the much awaited Fata Tribunal has been constituted by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governor and a former bureaucrat Sange Marjan Khan was appointed its chairman.

A two-member bench comprising PHC Chief Justice Mazhar Alam Miankhel and Justice Mohammad Daud Khan was informed by Syed Attique Shah, an additional attorney general, that few days ago a notification was issued on behalf of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governor for notifying the three-member Fata Tribunal, the third and final judicial authority under the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR).

He stated that according to the notification Sange Marjan Khan was appointed the chairman whereas Hussainzada Khan, a former member Board of Revenue, and a local lawyer Atif Nazir, were appointed its members for three-year term.

Following the information provided by Mr Attique Shah, the bench referred for adjudication to the newly constituted tribunal six identical writ petitions filed against the non-functioning of the tribunal.

The said petitioners had challenged certain decisions made by the FCR commissioners in their respective cases and as the tribunal was non-functional since Jan 26, 2015, therefore, they had filed writ petitions before the high court. The commission had become non-functional as the then members had completed their three-year term.


Six identical petitions referred to it for adjudication


The court in these petitions had granted stay orders to the petitioners and restrained the assistant political agents concerned from proceedings in the respective cases.

The bench on Wednesday extended those stay orders till the newly formed tribunal hear the respective petitions.

When the bench took up for hearing these cases on Wednesday, a former deputy attorney general Mohammad Iqbal Mohmand, who appeared for two of the petitioners named Moasam Khan and Mufti Ijaz, contended that cases of the petitioners pertaining to civil disputes were decided by the APAs concerned in favour of the petitioners and their opponents had filed appeals before the FCR commissioner.

He added that the FCR commissioner had remanded those cases back to the APAs. He added that as the judgments of the commissioner could be challenged before the Fata Tribunal, therefore, the petitioners had approached the high court as the tribunal was non-functional and no other forum was available.

Mr Mohmand stated that during previous hearing of the cases, the chief justice had taken notice of the issue and had directed the additional attorney general to contact the relevant quarters and explain why the formation of the commission was delayed for around four months.

The AAG then informed the court that the required notification had been issued by the government and the tribunal would soon start functioning.

The Fata Tribunal was introduced in 2011 by making amendments in section 55A of the FCR.  The Fata Tribunal is consisted of a chairman and two members, appointed by the governor. The chairman shall be a person who has been a civil servant of not less than BPS-21 and having experience of tribal administration. One of the members shall be qualified to be appointed as judge of the high court and well conversant with traditions. The other member shall be a former civil servant of not less than BPS-20.

Published in Dawn, May 28th, 2015

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