ISLAMABAD, Sept 3: The Rawalpindi Bench of the Lahore High Court is likely to hear next Wednesday (Sept 7) the challenge to President Pervez Musharraf’s ordinance recently promulgated to slash the tenure of the chairman and the four members of the Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC) to three years from five.

“In response to our request of early hearing, we have been communicated by the court that the petition is likely to be fixed in the supplementary cause list for September 7,” an associate of senior advocate Akram Sheikh told Dawn.

Advocate Akram Sheikh will represent Gen (retd) Jamshaid Gulzar, chairman of FPSC, and members Gul Hanif, Justice (retd) Abdur Rehman Khan, Javed Akram and Tariq Saeed Haroon before the court who on Friday had moved the high court challenging the ordinance with a plea to stay the implementation of the ordinance, pending the instant case before the court.

President Pervez Musharraf, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, the federal government through Secretary, Establishment Division, Law and Justice have been made respondents in the petition.

The ordinance is patently and manifestly a colourable exercise of power by the president, who promulgated the FPSC (Amendment) Ordinance 2005, reducing the term of office of the sitting chairman and members of the commission to three years from the date of joining or till the time they reached the age of 65, just two days before the session of the National Assembly, they contended.

With the promulgation of the ordinance, the petition said,

Gul Hanif, Justice Abdur Rehman Khan, and Javed Akram would be affected immediately while the tenure of both the chairman and Tariq Saeed Haroon would be curtailed by two years.

Therefore the court should declare, they pleaded, that the amendment was discriminatory and against the provisions of the Constitution and based on ulterior motives.

Lt-Gen (retd) Jamshaid Gulzar was appointed chairman of the commission for five years on March 31, 2003, while Hanif Gul was appointed member on November 1, 2001; Justice (retd) Abdur Rehman on January 31, 2002; Javed Akram on June 6, 2002 and Tariq Saeed on December 2, 2002.

Removal of petitioners as members of FPSC through the ordinance violates their fundamental right as contained in Article 14 of the constitution, the petition stated.

Besides, no compelling circumstances exist to convince the president to believe that it is necessary to promulgate the ordinance, the petitioners contended.

Through the ordinance, the rights and privileges conferred upon them under the Federal Public Service Commission Ordinance, 1977, could not be taken away by forcing them to cease to be members of the commission when their appointments were made for five years each, they stated.