A petition challenging the constitution of the Grievance Redressal Committee (GRC) by the Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif regarding the "alleged abuse of power" has been filed in Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Monday. The PM on October 10 constituted a five-member committee to redress the grievance of MQM regarding the alleged abuse of power by a law enforcement agency or any other government institution in the city of Pakistan.
Shahid Orakzai, the petitioner, cited Law Ministry through Secretary Law as respondent. The petition stated that the notification did not mention any provision of the constitution nor of any law in force that justified the establishment of such a committee inside a province and for a visible political purpose. It has not even specified time line for the working of the Committee which makes it a parallel High Court or just another Registry of the Supreme Court.
The Federal Government cannot launch a political venture purely on her own or in a joint venture with a political party without the consent of Provincial Government, the petition stated, adding that such a political party must be in power in the province whereas MQM is neither in the Government nor in the Provincial Assembly.
The petitioner claimed that Federal Finance Minister Senator Ishaq Dar and Dr Farooq Sattar, a former MNA of MQM, signed an agreement for the establishment of GRC. It further stated that three retired Judges of the Supreme Court have been appointed to the Committee. Two of them, namely, former Justice Nasir Aslam Zahid and former Justice Khalil-ur-Rehman Khan were not given Oath of Office in the year 2000 thus falls in the category where Judges are only deemed to have continued to hold office under the Constitution till their date of superannuation as per article 270AA clause 3b.
Thus any Judge included in Clause 3 b of Article 270AA cannot be nominated by the Federal Government fort any judicial or quasi judicial work that is in violation of law. The petitioner questioned as to how the federal Government can engage three retired Judges of the SC to establish a supra-constitutional forum. The petitioner prayed before the court to suspend the notification and restrain the GRC from doing any work in Karachi until the ruling on the writ petition "as it is in violation of law". It also requested the court to direct the Federal Government to place the agreement on the record as well as report the total expenditure incurred on the GRC and pay it as costs to the petitioner.
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