In conflict with rights: NCA employees denied redress

Senate panel validates amended NCA Act

ISLAMABAD: The Senate Defence Committee endorsed the National Command Authority Act of 2016, barring courts, including the Supreme Court, from entertaining petitions filed by employees of the authority. This was the first item on agenda today.

The report, tabled by committee’s chairman Mushahid Hussain Syed, also contains a note of dissent by Senator Farhatullah Babar, who proposed a middle ground but other committee members did not agree.

The Bill was previously endorsed by the defence committee but was sent back by the Chairman Senate for reconsideration mainly because it conflicted with fundamental rights. By a majority vote, the committee argued that although it was the prerogative of Parliament to legislate, the master-servant relationship and ousting the jurisdiction of the apex court was in the national security interest.



Farhatullah Babar cited reasons for demoralising the employees. He said that this state of affairs would undermine the strategic programme.

Pointing out that a review petition was pending before the Supreme Court in this regard, he said: “The illegality of thrusting upon employees new rules without giving them an option would lead to concentration of unbridled power in the hands of the executive.”

Babar also called for establishing a special service tribunal just like the Federal Services Tribunal of Pakistan, dealing exclusively with the service matters of NCA/SPD employees.

The special tribunal may be set up under Section 11 of the NCA Act of 2010 which provides for an appellate authority, he said.

The proposal, however, did not gain traction.

Rejecting the argument of proliferation, Farhatullah Babar said that there was no proliferation when various organisations, now under the NCA, worked independently.



Proliferation occurred only after the formation of NCA, a fact duly acknowledged by General (retired) Pervez Musharraf in his book In the Line of Fire, he said in his dissent note. Over 100,000 employees worked in various organisations under the NCA and they should not be degraded to ‘Master-Servant’ relationship. He said that the amendment would result in demotivating employees and eventually undermining the strategic programme itself.



He wondered why thousands of employees in nuclear agriculture or medical centres should be subjected to the new rules as they had nothing to do with classified programmes.

Debunking the reasoning that the UN Resolution 1540 required tightening controls over employees, he said that this resolution was meant to prevent pilferage and proliferation of strategic materials and not deprive the employees of their rights.

The argument that ‘master-servant’ relationship was to keep check on the employees was spurious, he said.

The dissent note said that a review petition on the issue was already pending before the SC.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 20^th, 2016.