The Islamabad High Court (IHC) declared the directive of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) regarding restoration of 68 employees of the Agricultural Research Council (PARC), as ultra vires the Constitution and the PARC Ordinance, 1981.

IHC Chief Justice Athar Minallah in a six-page judgment declared the PAC directives illegal and unconstitutional, being violative of the principle of trichotomy of powers. As a result, the illegally reinstated employees have been sent packing.

The IHC decided the case of 68 employees of the PARC who had been restored last year upon the directives of the PAC.

Former chairman PARC Zafar Altaf in 2011 hired 269 employees without following any open, competitive process. After the issue drew controversy, the Council itself decided to terminate these employees. The employees challenged their termination, but their petitions were dismissed by the IHC, a process which attained finality in 2019. However, throughout these years, the ground reality is that the “terminated” employees kept on drawing salaries.

In 2021, when the High Court issued contempt notices to the institution, the illegal employees were finally sent home. The employees then lobbied the PAC which issued a direction to the chairman PARC to restore them. In the meantime, the speaker of the National Assembly also issued a ruling to this effect. Under tremendous political pressure, the chairman PARC complied.

These parliamentary directives were challenged in court by Muhammad Zahid Akram, an employee whose seniority was adversely affected. Counsel for petitioner Umer Ijaz Gilani urged the court to set aside these parliamentary directives. He argued whether Parliament, the speaker or the PAC were competent and are vested with the jurisdiction to issue orders which are in the nature of executive functions.

The IHC noted that the scheme of the 1973 Constitution is based on the principle of trichotomy of power. The respondent Council has been established under the PARC Ordinance, 1981. “A plain reading of the Ordinance of 1981, as whole, shows that it is a self-contained comprehensive statute, promulgated to establish and reorganise the respondent Council. Section 3(2) has declared the status of the respondent Council as a body corporate and that it shall sue or be sued in its own name.”

The judgment further said that Section 5 provides that the federal government may issue directives and orders regarding questions of policy. Section 15 empowers the respondent Council to appoint officers and staff. The IHC noted that the PAC has been constituted under Rule 202 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business of the National Assembly, 2007. Rule 203 describes the functions of the PAC.

“Such interference, direction or order besides being ultra vires of the Ordinance would tantamount to breach of the principle of trichotomy of powers embedded in the Constitution.”

Umer Gilani told Business Recorder the judgment is significant because it is one of those rare cases where the IHC has set aside clear parliamentary directives. Normally, the court exercises judicial restraint in such matters.

The story was originally published in Business Recorder on April 03, 2022.