Too old to govern: SHC dismisses petition against CM

Petitioner says CM Shah is over 80 years old, forgets names of cabinet ministers.

KARACHI: A division bench of the Sindh High Court (SHC) dismissed on Tuesday a constitutional petition against Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah for being too old for his post.

The petition was filed by Dr Muhammad Ali Thallo who claims to have been a coordinator for the late Benazir Bhutto.

The petitioner said that the CM was over 80 years old, forgets the names of cabinet ministers and is unable to perform his job as required. He said that just as a minimum age is fixed for becoming a legislator, so too must an upper age limit be fixed for public office.

The bench comprising Justice Shahid Anwar Bajwa and Justice Tufail Ebrahim questioned the petitioner’s lawyer. The bench, referring to the illness of Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, said that even though Jinnah’s close associates knew that he would not live beyond three years, they did not disqualify or remove him. Instead, the court said, he went on to create Pakistan.

The petitioner’s lawyer was unable to answer a number of queries on purely legal and constitutional grounds.

AAG Adnan Karim tried to address the court, but the bench stopped him and said that the state had not even been put on notice in this petition. The bench dismissed the petition in limine.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 9^th, 2010.