ISLAMABAD: The Senate Defence Committee today presented in the Senate its report endorsing the National Command Authority Act 2016 envisaging ‘Master-Servant relationship’ for the employees of organisations under NCA and ousting the jurisdiction of courts including Supreme Court from entertaining petitions of employees. It was the first item on the agenda today.
The report laid by the Committee’s chairman Mushahid Hussain Syed also contains a dissent note by Senator Farhatullah Babar listing several reasons for rejecting it and also proposing a middle way which however found no resonance with other members of the Committee. The Bill passed in the National Assembly last September and was subsequently laid in the Senate was also previously endorsed by the Defence Committee but was sent back by the Chairman Senate for reconsideration citing several reasons including conflict with fundamental rights.
The Defence Committee meeting on December 8, however, stuck to its earlier decision and endorsed the Bill yet again. The Committee by majority vote argued that it was the prerogative of the Parliament to legislate on any matter at any time and that the servant-master relationship and ousting the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court was in the interest of national security.
Dissenting and speaking in the Senate today, Farhatullah Babar cited reasons of demoralising the employees, which will undermine the strategic program, the matter already before the Supreme Court in a review petition. The illegality of thrusting upon employees new rules without giving them an option and concentration of too much of power in the hands of executive without check by an independent judicial body had contributed to their demoralisation.
Farhatullah Babar also proposed the establishment of an independent Special Service Tribunal on the pattern of Federal Services Tribunal of Pakistan to deal exclusively with the service maters of employees of NCA/SPD the decisions of which may be challenged before the Supreme Court.
The special tribunal may be set up under Section 11 of the NCA Act 2010 which provides for an Appellate Authority, he said. The proposal however did not find favour with majority members of the Committee which has three former army generals as its members. Rejecting the proliferation argument as self-serving Farhatullah Babar said that there was no proliferation when the various organizations, now under NCA, were working independently under their respective service rules.
Proliferation took place only after the formation of NCA – a fact duly acknowledged by General Pervez Musharraf Pervez Musharraf in his book “In the Line of Fire”, he said in his dissent note. It is wrong to punish the employees for the fault of NCA, the note said.
The dissent note said that the issue is already before the SC in a review petition. Although the Parliament has the right to legislate at any time, it would be unwise to make this legislation in undue haste in a manner that appears to scuttle a judicial process underway, he said.
