KARACHI: Sindh Governor Kamran Khan Tessori on Saturday refused to sign two legislation — The Social Protection Authority (Amendment) Bill 2023 and Karachi Metropolitan University Bill 2023 — and returned these to the provincial assembly with his objections.

The two bills were adopted by the now dissolved Sindh Assembly and forwarded to the governor for his assent.

The governor cited his objections on some clauses of both the bills in accordance with Section 116(2)(b) of the Constitution.

Regarding the Karachi Metropolitan University Bill 2023, the governor stated: “As per Section 14(1) of the proposed bill, the Mayor or Administrator KMC shall be pro-chancellor of the university, who, according to clause 14(2) shall exercise all the powers and perform all the duties of the chancellor in his absence or any other cause incapacitating him to function.

Tessori returns varsity and social protection authority bills to provincial legislature

“It is worth mentioning here that in other universities of the province, the pro-chancellor exercises all the powers of the Chief Minister, in his absence or in case of these powers are delegated by the Chief Minister to the incumbent pro-chancellor. Furthermore, the powers of the proposed university to affiliate or disaffiliate colleges vide Section 6(vii) is also required to be revised and made in consonance with the guidelines issued by the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan,” he stated, according to a statement issued from the Governor House.

The governor was also of the view that it would be prudent if the in-hand proposed legislation may be looked into for further conformity of the role of pro-chancellor with other universities of the province as elaborated in Para-9, and also to revisit Section 6(vii) of the proposed bill to make it in line with the HEC Pakistan’s referred guidelines.

“In view of the foregoing, I, therefore, return the said bill with the advice to place the above observations before the Provincial Assembly for reconsidering the proposed amendments,” the governor said.

About the second legislation, Mr Tessori pointed out the amendment to Section (5) of the Social Protection Authority (Amendment) Bill 2023 for clause (b) whereby any member to be nominated by the chief minister as “vice chairperson” does not contain any qualification, experience and tenure for the post which is against the essence of the post.

“While referring amendment to Section 9 of the Sindh Act No.IX of 2022 in sub-section (1) the replacement of fixed tenure (four years) to indefinite period of time and further extension for more two years is clear-cut violation of the already established competitive and transparent recruitment process,” he stated.

“Reduction of experience from 20 years to 15 years and changing the post of BPS-20 to BPS-19/20 will impact the performance of the chief executive officer. I, therefore, return the said bill with the advice to place the above observations before the Provincial Assembly for reconsidering the proposed amendment,” he further stated.

Published in Dawn, August 27th, 2023