KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Thursday said that the impugned appointment of the federal member of the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) would stand suspended automatically if the same post was not filled from Sindh within four weeks.

A federal law officer informed the SHC that the issue of appointing a federal member of Irsa from Sindh was under consideration, but the same had not been attended to due to budgetary issues.

A grower from Sindh had moved the SHC against the appointment of the federal member of Irsa, Asjad Imtiaz Ali, and submitted that his appointment was made in clear violation of a policy decision as well as an earlier judgement of the SHC on the subject matter.

Earlier, the SHC had issued directives to the respondents to notify the federal member of Irsa from Sindh in light of its earlier order passed in 2017.

When the matter came up for hearing before a two-judge bench headed by Justice Mohammad Iqbal Kalhoro on Thursday, the counsel for the petitioner, Barrister Zameer Ghumro, submitted that despite repeated directives issued by the SHC to appoint a federal member from Sindh, the respondents were yet to comply with the court’s orders.

The bench, in its order, noted that Additional Attorney General Munawar Iqbal Duggal had come from Islamabad to attend to the matter and sought more time, as according to him, the issue was under consideration but had not been addressed due to budgetary issues.

“He requests for four weeks’ time to sort out the issue and agrees that if the issue is not decided within four weeks and federal member in Irsa is not appointed from Sindh in compliance of judgment dated 12.05.2017 passed in C.P. No. D-5206/2013 the impugned notification appointing respondent No. 5 [Asjad Imtiaz Ali] as federal member in Irsa shall stand suspended automatically”, the order concluded.

Earlier, the provincial authorities had also apprised the SHC that Sindh had proposed retired chief engineer Shafqat Hussain Wadho to be appointed as federal member of Irsa from Sindh for a period of three years.

Published in Dawn, June 27th, 2025