The Supreme Court (SC) has refused to disclose details about its workforce, asking the Islamabad High Court (IHC) to overturn the decision of another judicial body that had ordered the disclosure of the top court’s employee details.
The original order for the disclosure was issued by the Pakistan Information Commission (PIC) on July 12. The PIC issued the order in response to an application filed by citizen Mukhtar Ahmed who requested information about the sanctioned strength of SC staff from BS-1 to BS-22, vacant positions, daily wagers, posts created after January 1, 2017, persons with disabilities, and transgender working in the apex court.
The SC registrar initially filed a review petition before the PIC but that was dismissed last month, subsequently, a petition was filed before the Islamabad High Court (IHC) asking it to overrule the PIC’s order.
The petition filed before the IHC said that “the impugned orders [of PIC] are without jurisdiction and in violation of express provisions of the constitution of and the statutory law on the subject.”
The petition further noted, “PIC erred in law while observing that Supreme Court is a public body and failed to comprehend the difference between the federal law as defined in Article 260 of the constitution”. The petition went on to say, “the direction issued by the PIC [is] applicable to public bodies and not to the constitutional court.”
The petition will be heard by Chief Justice (CJ) of the IHC Justice Athar Minallah on Thursday.
