KARACHI: The Supreme Court on Monday issued notices to the Election Commission of Pakistan and others on a petition against the appointment of two serving and as many retired members of the ECP.

A two-judge SC bench headed by Chief Justice Gulzar Ahmed directed the ECP and other respondents to file comments by February next year.

The Aam Log Ittehad party, through its head retired Justice Wajihuddin Ahmed, approached the apex court against a judgement of the Sindh High Court for dismissing its petition in which the petitioner contended that the appointments of four ECP members were illegal.

The petitioner argued that three of them — retired justices Shakeel Ahmad Baloch, Irshad Qaiser and Altaf Ibrahim Qureshi — were appointed ECP members in violation of Article 207 (2) of the Constitution since their appointments were made before the expiry of a mandatory period of two years after they ceased the office as judges of the high courts.

Plea against induction of two serving and as many retired members

Wajihuddin Ahmed maintained that retired bureaucrat Abdul Ghaffar was inducted into the ECP despite the fact that he was facing a corruption case and his name was placed on the Exit Control List.

Two of the respondents — Justice Baloch and Abdul Ghaffar — retired as members of the ECP in January.

The petitioner further argued that Justice Baloch was appointed member of the ECP from Balochistan only 10 days after he had resigned as a judge of the Balochistan High Court in July 2016 and Justice Qaiser became the first-ever woman member of the ECP within 45 days of her retirement as a judge of the Peshawar High Court in June 2016. Justice Qureshi retired as a judge of the Lahore High Court in March 2015 and he was appointed ECP member from Punjab in July 2016.

In June, a two-judge SHC bench had dismissed the petition with an observation that the ECP was a “quasi-judicial office” and thus the bar of expiry of two years in terms of Article 207(2) of the Constitution would not be attracted in the case of appointment of retired judges of superior and higher judiciary.

“As far as the case of the fourth member is concerned, neither any substantial constitutional or legal ground had been agitated nor any sufficient material or evidence produced in support of the allegations of corruption,” it had added.

Appeals against dismissal from service

The Supreme Court dismissed the appeals of two former personnel of Sindh Rangers against their removal from service.

Former sub-inspectors Amjad Ali and Hawaldar Mohammad Ramzan had filed the appeals against their removal on charges of taking bribe and financial embezzlement.

The counsel for the paramilitary force opposed the appeals and argued that Amjad had set a suspect free after taking bribe. The suspect was among the facilitators in the abduction of the vice chancellor of Islamia College University, Peshawar.

The counsel maintained that the second appellant was removed from service for his involvement in financial misappropriation.

Meanwhile, the SC bench also turned down an identical appeal of a former accountant of the Sindh education department.

Irfan Ahmed Shaikh, through his lawyer, contended that he was a senior accountant of the education department in Thatta and removed from service over alleged transfer of Rs70 million fund and facts were overlooked during the inquiry. The counsel argued that the ID used for transfer of the fund was also in the use of other officials.

The chief justice remarked that they knew the affairs of the government departments and even billions of rupees could be transferred or misappropriated.

Published in Dawn, December 29th, 2020