Sindh government approaches SC to oust AD Khawaja

High court order of Sep 7 allows AD Khawaja to complete his three-year term

ISLAMABAD: After much unfruitful efforts, the Sindh government has approached the Supreme Court to get AD Khawaja ousted from the post of inspector general of police.

The provincial government, through the home and chief secretaries, filed a petition in the apex court challenging the SHC’s September 7 order to permit Allah Dino Khawaja to continue as the IG of Sindh. The petition was filed by senior lawyer Farooq H Naeek.

The petition contended that the provincial government was facing severe hardships in performing its constitutional obligation of maintaining law and order. Unless the instant petition was allowed, public interest would be seriously prejudiced and the authority and autonomy of the provincial government would be undermined.

The petition also contended that the SHC verdict suffered from a grave error of law in as much as the directions were also contrary to the fundamental and well-settled principle of parliamentary sovereignty.

“The legislative bodies cannot be prevented or restrained from performing their constitutional obligations and carrying out their mandate as exclusively conferred upon them,” stated the petition.

It was submitted that preventing the provincial government from making an amendment or alternation in the Rules of Business, 1986, constituted a permanent injunction against a legislative body in respect of policy matters within its exclusive competence and prevention from amending or reducing the tenure from less than three years travelled well beyond the scope of judicial functions and amounted to legislation and the same was therefore unsustainable in the eyes of law.

“The determination of three years tenure of IGP to be immutable by the province is tantamount to writing into the Constitution which is blatantly illegal, unlawful and outside the jurisdiction of the division bench of the High Court of Sindh.”

It was further submitted that entrenchment of three-year duration of tenure of the IG was never contemplated by the Constitution, federal or provincial legislature, as such, the entrenchment was illegal, unconstitutional and blatantly without jurisdiction.

The petitioner wondered that how the division bench had reached a conclusion that a bare minimum tenure of “three years” was to be guaranteed as an inviolable obligation and the same could never be reduced down, since no valid reasoning whatsoever had been given for the same nor was there a constitutional provision which encapsulated this.

It was further submitted that the federal government’s interference in respect of appointment and removal of the head of the primary law enforcement agency of the province i.e. IGP, violated the basic structure of the Constitution, which guaranteed provincial autonomy.

“The impugned judgment has thus significantly eroded and impaired the executive authority of the provincial government. Accordingly, the impugned judgment is unsustainable in the eyes of the law and therefore liable to be set aside.”

It’s pertinent to mention here that since the Centre appointed AD Khawaja in 2016, the Sindh government has been running from pillar to post for his removal.