Islamabad April 22, 2021: Pakistan People’s Party has expressed grave concern over the inordinate delay in laying the Ordinances pertaining to Higher Education Commission before either House of the Parliament and demanded that it be laid in the Parliament immediately.   
 
In a statement today Secretary General of the Pakistan Peoples’ Party Parliamentarians former Senator Farhatullah Babar said that issuing an ordinance when either House is in session in itself is unconstitutional. But not laying it before the Parliament even after promulgation made it a criminal assault on the independence of the regulatory body for higher education, he said.
 
He said that ordinances were not laid even when sessions of National Assembly and Senate were called after its promulgation exposing the grossly malafide intent behind it.
 
How else can one describe the sending home of the sitting Chairman of HEC without any charges by cutting short his 4-year tenure and simultaneously ending the autonomy of the Commission without any reason, without any consultation with stake holders he asked?
 
After all provinces are also stake holders in the HEC he said and added, “by not consulting provinces the federation has also assaulted constitutionally guaranteed provincial autonomy”.
 
Any legislation pertaining to regulatory bodies like HEC falls within the domain of Council of Common Interest (CCI) but it was not discussed at the platform of the Council either, he said.
 
The timing of the ordinance also raises serious issues in transparency, accountability and conflict of interest, he said.
 
“Questions raised by promulgating the ordinance just when the HEC decided to link funding of billions to research institutes linked to some highly influential individuals with the performance audit of the institutes will not easily die down”.
 
He said that Article 89 of the Constitution says “the President may except when the Senate or National Assembly is in session, if satisfied that circumstances exist which render it necessary to take immediate action, make and promulgate an ordinance as the circumstances may require”.
 
What were the compelling circumstances and what was the urgency to issue ordinance to cut short the tenure of Chairman on the one hand and rob the HEC of its autonomy without discussion and debate on the other, he asked.
 
Farhatullah Babar said that placing the regulatory body of HEC under the ministry of Education was unconstitutional. It was also a blatant misuse of the President’s powers to issue ordinances, an unacceptable infringement upon the domain of CCI in which all provinces have equal stakes and a disregard of the SC verdicts about the independence of regulatory bodies. The PPP he said will reject it by employing every and all parliamentary instruments,