KARACHI, Oct 30: A division bench, comprising Chief Justice Sabihuddin Ahmed and Justice Yasmeen Abbasey, reserved judgment on a petition moved by the Sindh Professors and Lecturers Association and other organizations of teachers against the ban imposed on them by the provincial education department.

Advocates Akhtar Hussain and Abdul Mujib Pirzada submitted that the ban was illegal as the organizations were duly registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860, and were carrying out their activities to promote the cause of education and educators in accordance with the law.

Contesting the petitions on behalf of the respondent department, Advocate Khalid Anwer contended that the organizations could not be registered under the Societies Registration Act because their membership consisted of government employees.

As for the alleged infringement of the petitioners’ fundamental rights under Article 17 of the Constitution and other constitutional provisions, the lawyer said the rights remained suspended under the emergency proclaimed in 1998 after nuclear explosions.

The petitioners’ counsel said the 1998 state siege remained in force by virtue of the subsequent proclamation of emergency in 1999 and came to an end when the Legal Framework Order terminated it in 2002.

The LFO was later incorporated in the Constitution vide the 17th Amendment. All the fundamental rights, including the right to form associations and join any profession subject to reasonable restrictions imposed by the law were available to the petitioners.

Advocates Hussain and Pirzada said the banned associations were duly recognized by the respondent provincial government and its education department till they turned around and clamped a ban all of a sudden. The petitioners produced minutes of meetings held by the government functionaries with the office-bearers of the banned organizations.

IMTIAZ’S PETITIONS: All the petitions moved by former revenue minister Imtiaz Ahmed Shaikh and his brother, Maqbool Ahmed Shaikh, were adjourned till Dec 9. Their counsel informed the benches seized of the petitions that the ex-minister was hospitalized at Shikarpur and was too sick to travel to Karachi.