KARACHI: The PPP-led provincial government will have to wait at least a couple of days more to remove Sindh police chief A.D. Khowaja as the Sindh High Court on Tuesday extended its interim order till April 13, restraining his removal from the post of inspector general of police.

Headed by Justice Munib Akhtar, the bench put off the hearing of two applications against the removal of Mr Khowaja to Thursday while the applicants’ counsel was still forwarding arguments against the provincial government decision.

The bench also directed the chief provincial law officer to place on record the agreement between the federal and provincial governments on the appointment of provincial police chief.

Civil rights campaigners had approached the SHC for contempt proceedings against the provincial government after it surrendered the services of Mr Khowaja to the federal government and appointed Additional IG Sardar Abdul Majeed Dasti, a grade-21 officer, as acting IGP on April 1.

The applicants’ counsel would carry on with his submission on the next date of hearing at 11am.

On April 6, the bench had passed an interim order directing IGP Khowaja to continue his duty as provincial police chief though his services were surrendered to the federal government by the Sindh government on March 31.

The applicants’ counsel submitted that the provincial government’s notification was a violation of the court orders and liable to be struck down.

During the previous hearing, Advocate General Zamir Ghumro referred to the court’s previous order and submitted that the provincial cabinet had met and approved the order surrendering services of Mr Khowaja and the notification appointing Sardar Abdul Majeed Dasti as acting IGP.

He also filed the statement of provincial services secretary with the minutes of the cabinet meeting.

In his reply to the contempt application, the services secretary submitted that the applicants were overstretching the intent and import of the SHC order of Dec 28, 2016 with mala fide intention to divest the provincial government of its exclusive right of appointing police chief.

He said Mr Khowaja was a junior officer in the seniority of officers of the Police Service of Pakistan and was serving in the provincial government on an own-pay-and-scale (OPS) basis. The provincial services secretary stated that the provincial government relieved Mr Khowaja as it intended to appoint one of the senior officers as IGP in compliance with the order of the Supreme Court that had deprecated appointments on an OPS basis.

He said the contempt application was not maintainable as the restraining order dated Dec 12, 2016 did not put an absolute bar on removing Mr Khowaja.

Published in Dawn, April 12th, 2017