ISLAMABAD – The Supreme Court will today (Monday) start hearing a petition against the dissolution of the Higher Education Commission (HEC) to the provinces and the government’s petition seeking a review of the court’s verdict on the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO).
The petition against the HEC dissolution will be heard by a three-member bench of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, Justice Muhammad Sair Ali and Justice Ghulam Rabbani. Senior advocate Anwar Mansoor Khan will appear for one of the petitioners – Prof GA Miana, while the other petitioner – Prof Attaur Rehman will appear in person.
The petitioners have requested the apex court to order the government not to devolve higher education to the provinces. The federal government, through the Ministries of Law and Education, the Inter-Provincial Coordination Division and HEC, have been made respondent in the petition.
The petitioners have requested the court to declare the devolution of the functions and authorities to the provinces and the ministries, departments and divisions through notification No F3(26)/2010-IC-I of March 31, 2011 unlawful and unconstitutional and therefore liable to be reversed.
The court has also been requested to allow the commission to function under the authority of the HEC Ordinance, 2002, and that any action taken by the respondents contrary to the ordinance be undone immediately. The petitioners pleaded that the role provided in item number 14 of the Federal Legislative List (Fourth Schedule of the Constitution) could not be given to the provinces and the Cabinet Division.
In the presence of the HEC Ordinance, 2002, the matters relating to Part II of the Fourth Schedule being the function of the Council of Common Interests cannot be altered or changed and devolved by the federal government through a notification, the petitioners added.
Meanwhile, a 17-member full court headed by Chief Justice Chaudhry will resume the hearing on the review petition against the NRO verdict. Senior lawyer Kamal Azfar, who represented the government in the main plea against the NRO, will appear before the court on notice.
Although Azfar was made adviser to the prime minister on disaster management during the hearing of the main plea and replaced by Sardar Latif Khosa, the court rules make it mandatory that a lawyer who argues the main case pleads the review petition as well.
Khosa is now working as the Punjab governor and will not be available to plead the case. Therefore, keeping in view the complexity of the matter, the Supreme Court on Friday issued notice to Kamal Azfar, saying he continued to be the lawyer for the petitioner.
According to legal experts, resumption of the hearing may again aggravate an already tense relationship between the executive and the judiciary because the court would pick up the threads from where it had left when it put off the case on October 13 last year.
