ISLAMABAD: The fate of the employees of National Crisis Management Cell (NCMC) is hanging in the balance as the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Wednesday adjourned the hearing of a petition against the cell’s merger with the National Counter-Terrorism Authority (Nacta).

Some NCMC officials had on March 2 challenged in the IHC the merger and their forced posting to Nacta. Justice Aamir Farooq took up the petition on Wednesday but put off the matter till May 16 as the main counsel for petitioners Mohammad Shuaib Shaheen was not available.

Advocate Mohammad Umair Baloch, another counsel of the petitioners, requested the court to re-list the matter immediately as the issue was very important in nature as the department had been lying dormant for the past several months.

The NCMC was dissolved on Jan 15 through a notification issued by the interior ministry and its 92 officials – from Islamabad and four provincial capitals – were transferred to Nacta. Funds allocated for the NCMC were also transferred to Nacta.

Known as the Federal Control Room since 1947, the NCMC was reorganised in October 2000. Its functions included crisis control, intelligence coordination and data management, counter-terrorism monitoring and security situation and coordination with foreign missions on such matters.

The NCMC officials said they had not been given a choice between joining Nacta and being transferred to the surplus pool of the Establishment Division for posting.

The petition said that the NCMC was an attached department of the Ministry of Interior and its employees were civil servants while Nacta was an autonomous body attached to the Prime Minister’s Office and its employees were not civil servants.

The petition said that the NCMC was carrying out the interior ministry’s operational functions and acts as the nerve centre for law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

It claimed that the former Nacta national coordinator Hamid Ali Khan had got the summary for the merger approved on July 9 last year through “misrepresentation”. They said the summary for merger should have been sent through the cabinet secretary and the Establishment Division, which had not been done.

The petition asked the court to set aside the notification of the transfer of the NCMC officials to Nacta and that funds transferred to the counter-terrorism authority should also be given back to the NCMC.

Published in Dawn, April 28th, 2016