IHC to hear PML-N National Finance Commission plea from Thursday

Party has moved court against the composition of the commission

ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court on Wednesday accepted the PML-N’s petition against the composition of the 10th National Finance Commission and would start hearing it from Thursday.

According to the cause list issued by the court registrar, a single-member bench comprising Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb will hear the case.

In the petition filed by PML-N leader Khurram Dastagir, the party argued that Adviser to the PM on Finance Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh was appointed a member of the commission without consultation with the governors in violation of the Article 160(1) of the Constitution.

It noted that as per the Constitution, there was five statutory members presence was essential to the commission—the federal finance minister who, by virtue of Article 92(1), could only be from among the members of parliament; and the four provincial finance ministers, who by virtue of Article 132(1 could only be from among the members of provincial assemblies.

“Any co-opted member may be added only if there is consensus amongst the president and the governors of all the provinces,” the petition read.

The petitioner also stated that the notification issued for the formation of the commission on May 12 also conveyed “the misimpression that proceedings of the commission can take place even in the absence of the federal finance minister. “This is a complete misunderstanding. Any proceedings of the commission where even one of the duly appointed members of the commission is absent will have to be deemed void and illegal.”

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The party argued that consultation with provincial cabinets on each and every co-opted member was also important because governors are federal nominees. “They are meant to be representatives of the federation whereas the provincial cabinets represent the federating units.”

It noted that Articles 48 and 105 of the Constitution made it clear that except in some limited matters the president and the governors were bound to act on and in accordance with the advice of their respective cabinets or the prime minister and chief ministers.

The petitioner further observed that the list of members includes the name of the finance secretary… “However, next to this is written ‘official expert’, whereas the word ‘member’ is written next to all other serial numbers. This creates ambiguity about whether the finance secretary is a member or not:”

It was also pointed out that that the notification was dated May 12 but it purportedly created the commission with effect from April 23.

“This is completely illegal. Even if, for the sake of argument, the legality of the present commission was admitted, any proceeding which took place prior to May 12 must be held to be of no legal effect.”

The party argued that some of the items laid down the term of reference of the commission fell beyond its scope including assessment and allocation of resources to meet expenditures made on security and natural disasters/calamities and exploring ways to reduce losses of state-owned enterprises and agreeing on a mechanism for sharing these losses between the federal and provincial governments.

The petitioner prayed to the court to declare the notification as illegal and in violation of sub-articles (1) and (2) of Article 160 of the Constitution.