SHC restrains federal govt from finalising appointment of SECP commissioners

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court has allowed the secretary finance to continue the hiring process of commissioners of Security Exchange Commission, while restraining him from finalising their appointments.

The direction came on a petition of a Karachi human rights society against the appointment of commissioners in SECP. The petitioner submitted that the Supreme Court had removed former chairman Zafar Abdullah in 2013 while the commissioners Mohammad Ali, Ghulam Mohammad and Akif Saeed had completed their tenures of service. However it has been learnt that the government wanted to again appoint these commissioners who had already completed their tenures and their names were also shortlisted. This, the petitioner pleaded is not lawfully possible since they had already completed their tenures of service and the federal government must be restrained from doing so.

The court while issuing notices to the respondents called for their comments and restrained the secretary finance from finalizing the commissioner' appointments. The court however allowed the secretary to continue the hiring process of the commissioners.