PESHAWAR, Dec 9: The Peshawar High Court on Friday directed the federal and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governments to form the 'Fata Tribunal' at the earliest, observing that no forum for challenging orders of the FCR commissioner has been in place since the amendments were made to the law in August.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Dost Mohammad Khan and Justice Mian Fasihul Mulk disposed of a writ petition filed by a resident of Khar tehsil of Bajaur tribal region, Rasheed Khan, challenging orders of the erstwhile FCR Tribunal and political agent of the agency in a civil dispute.

The bench did not touch facts of the case observing under Article 247 of the Constitution, the superior courts couldn't exercise jurisdiction in Fata.

The bench said it would issue directives to the federal and provincial governments for constituting the Fata Tribunal under the FCR at the earliest where the petitioner could move and raise his grievances.

Under the FCR, the governor is the authority to appoint the chairman and members of the Fata Tribunal. Advocate Nasrun Minallah appeared for the petitioner and claimed that the petitioner had property dispute with another person at Khar and the same was decided by the political agent in favour of the opponent party. He said against the said judgment the petitioner filed an appeal before the forum of Commissioner FCR, which remanded the case to the administration with certain observation.

Mr Minallah said the administration challenged the said order before the FCR Tribunal comprising the provincial home and law secretaries, which set aside the order of the commissioner and restored the earlier order of the political agent. He said the petitioner filed a review petition before the FCR Tribunal and in the meantime the President of Pakistan promulgated the Frontier Crimes (Amendment) Regulation, 2011, through which drastic changes were made in the FCR.

Mr Minallah said following those amendments the forum of FCR Tribunal ceased to exist and now the law provided for another forum by the name of Fata Tribunal which was now the final judicial authority.

He said the authorities had now been executing the order of the FCR Tribunal and vacating some properties including shops from possession of the petitioner. He requested the court to stay the execution proceedings as no other forum was available to the petitioner for redressing his grievances.

The bench observed that it would not interfere with these proceedings as Article 247 had placed a bar on the court over exercising its jurisdiction in the tribal areas.

The erstwhile FCR Tribunal comprised of the provincial law and home secretaries and in case of a dissenting opinion between them the issue was referred to the provincial chief secretary. Through the latest amendments in the FCR, Section 55A was introduced for replacing the FCR Tribunal with the Fata Tribunal.

Under the law, the tribunal consist of a chairman being a person who has been a civil servant of not less than BPS-21 having experience of tribal administration and two other members, out of whom one shall be a person who is qualified to be appointed as judge of the high court, well conversant with local rewaj (traditions), and the other who has been a civil servant of not less than BPS-20 having experience of tribal administration.