PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court on Thursday ruled that the act of revenue officers to exercise judicial powers under the West Pakistan Land Revenue Act, 1967, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was unconstitutional.

The ruling was made by a bench consisting of Chief Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth and Justice Mohammad Nasir Mahfooz while accepting a petition of lawyer Ali Azim Afridi.

The bench pronounced a short order and will release the detailed judgment afterward.

The petitioner said the Constitution provided for the separation of judiciary from the executive under Article 175, while superior courts had given judgments about it, so the assigning of judicial powers to revenue officers was unconstitutional.

The respondents in the petition were the federal government through law secretary, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government through chief secretary, provincial law secretary and senior member of the board of revenue.

Mr Afridi said the West Pakistan Land Revenue Act, 1967, was enacted to consolidate and amend the law relating to the making and maintaining of record of rights, the assessment and collection of land revenue, the appointment and functioning of the revenue officers and other matters connected with the land revenue administration in the erstwhile West Pakistan province.

He added that the law was applicable to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and after the enactment of the Constitution (Eighteenth Amendment) Act, 2010, the province was empowered to make amendments in it.

The petitioner said under the law, the revenue officers adjudicated on issues wherein the executive was a necessary party in almost every single matter brought before them.

He added that the executive officers enjoyed original, appellate and supervisory jurisdiction, which was in conflict with the notion of the independence of judiciary and separation of judiciary from the executive.

Mr Afridi said the law went against Article 175 (3) of the Constitution by declaring the executive part of the judiciary.

He said the Supreme Court had ruled in a case that the principle of the separation and independence of judiciary as envisaged in Article 175 of the Constitution was also applicable to the lower judiciary, which was part of the judicial hierarchy, so its separation and independence had to be secured and preserved like the superior judiciary’s.

Published in Dawn, May 1st, 2020