A three-member bench of the Supreme Court has declared the appointment of Justice Deedaar Hussain Shah illegal. According to the reports printed in various newspapers, two judges on this three-member bench belonged to Punjab while the remaining judge belonged to Balochistan. This judgement has elicited a call for strike from the PPP in Sindh. It was announced that the protest would be kept peaceful. The PPP MPAs of Sindh attended the session of the provincial assembly wearing black bands and then marched to the High Court. The other parties in the assembly, who are also a part of the provincial government, were not asked to take part in the protest. Which is why they neither took part in the strike nor did they adopt a stance in favour or against it.
The eligibility criteria for the post of Chairman NAB are similar to that of the post of a Supreme Court or High Court judge. There is precedent of appointing political workers or party officials as judges in the High Court or Supreme Court. Notable cases include Lahore High Courts ex-judge Justice Khwaja Muhammad Shareef, Muslim Leagues former candidate for the National Assembly Justice Javed Iqbal and Justice (retd) Javed Buttar.
The only necessary condition for appointment is that after one has taken over their judicial seat, one must separate oneself from all and any political activities. Justice Deedar Hussain Shah was also made judge like this and he disassociated himself from politics thereafter. He never partook in politics after that. Where the brief decision of the SC regarding Justice Shah is concerned, it raises no objection regarding the eligibility of Justice (retd) Deedar Hussain Shah.
The decision of the PPP Sindh to agitate regarding the decision has been a subject of debate and analysis on many talk-shows on television. The majority of the analysts have severely criticised the PPP and have said that protesting against the judgement is contempt of court. Only Shafqat Mahmood was heard saying that protesting a court decision is nothing unusual. When the American courts had ruled in favour of President Bush, the party protested but Democratic nominee Al Gore accepted the decision.
A common observation is that the party which loses a case in the court laments and protests against it inside the court. Given that this is human nature, the court chooses to ignore it. No judge has ever considered holding such a protest as contempt.
Other analysts that commented on the PPPs decision, all of them more or less came out in disapproval of the decision. These people include Justice (r) Saeed-uz-Zaman Siddiqui, Mr S M Zafar, Justice (r) Tariq Mahmood, ex-Attorney General Anwar Mansoor Khan ex-President SCBA Hamid Khan, Munir A Malik and Justice (r) Wajihuddin amongst others. None of these is a Sindhi. Not that there arent any renowned Sindhi experts on law; there are many, most noteworthy amongst them being Abdul Hafeez Pirzada who helped draft the historic document of the 1973 Constitution in his tenure as the law minister.
There has always been a peculiar trend witnessed throughout the history of Pakistan. Whenever the people of province react to the perpetration of an injustice against them, the centres of power in Islamabad always have the same retort ready: that these people are exhibiting provincialist prejudice. It is never deemed necessary to consider the context of the protest and the reasons behind it.
Lets consider the case the people of East Pakistan, a tragedy that is still not much too old. That province had more population than the four provinces of West Pakistan. Their representatives demanded proportionate representation in all the institutions of the state. It is extremely unfortunate that they had not been accorded proper and rightful representation in any organ of the state. They were under-represented in the army, bureaucracy, the judiciary, governmental and semi-governmental institutions, governmental posts, ministries, industrial loans, diplomatic positions etc. Whenever the Bengali people asked for their rightful share, the power centres in Islamabad had the same answer: this was a display of deliberate provincialism. This is what happened (and still happens) to the people of Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. For all practical purposes, Balochistan is a province in rebellion.
The protest of the PPP Sindh in opposition to the decision against a Sindhi candidate isnt about this one decision. It has a long history of Sindhi resentment underlying it. I wont go into the details and will only mention a few prominent points. Pakistan has seen three Sindhi Prime Ministers. But in the Islamabad secretariat, one wont even come across a Sindhi peon or janitor, let alone a Sindhi officer whereas Sindh is the second largest province in Pakistan population-wise. I am not sure how many Sindhi Corps Commanders we have but one thing I am sure of is that the numbers arent representative. The proportion of Sindhis who take out industrial and agricultural loans is also very little. Very few of the financial institutions situated in Karachi are owned by Sindhis.
Three Sindhis have been elected Prime Minister on the basis of public mandate while the prime ministerial post has been awarded to Sindh a total of four times. But each time, the incumbent was booted out before their tenure was up. One of them was hanged in Rawalpindi. Another was shot in the very same city. The people of Sindh also count Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan as a Sindhi Prime Minister and he too was shot in Rawalpindi. Never had Pakistan seen a Sindhi President in its current constitution. With the exception of Mr Rafique Ahmad Tarar, all the presidents that this country has seen were in total administrative control of state affairs. None of them had to face a constant judicial challenge for their powers. There were thousands of illegal appointments under their aegis. Many people were employed contractually; many irregularities took place. I dont remember the SC ever taking suo moto notice of these indiscretions and declaring them null and void. None of these Presidents were forced to vacate their position. The Presidents that succeeded Zia-ul-Haq had a lot of power under the 8th Amendment but nobody forced them to give up their posts and powers.
Asif Zardari was the first Sindhi President and the demand for him giving up the presidential powers started as soon as he took his post. Everybody was now the champion of democracy, of the constitution. The first Sindhi President himself relinquished his powers to the Parliament. His tenure has seen the SC give decision that they couldnt and didnt give under other Presidents.
I have just touched on a few aspects. There are many other Sindhi grievances. If we keep suppressing them instead of hearing them out, as was done with the Bengalis and is being done with the Baloch people, I cannot comment on what will happen.
An analyst who is now an American citizen after swearing under the American Constitution writes, If the disconcerted PPP keeps rousing trouble in Sindh, it should be dealt with an iron hand. We have already dealt with Awami League with an iron hand and we all know how that ended. Occupied Kashmir has a population less than that of Hyderabad. India knows how successful it has been there with the use of the iron hand. Afghanistans population is less than that of Sindh. The US has seen how fruitful its iron hand tactics have been over there. Maybe this American citizen wants to avenge the beating of the US Army in Afghanistan by putting the Pakistan Army in the same position?
The writer is one of Pakistans most widely read columnists.