Peshawar High Court vs Islamabad High Court

On March 2, 2017, the federal cabinet decided to extend the jurisdiction of the Peshawar High Court (PHC) to tribal areas but all of a sudden it was reversed and replaced by Islamabad High Court (IHC). Why? Is there any one good reason for it? In the Senate the other day, the Minister for Safron, Lt Gen Abdul Qadir Baloch, had no reasonable explanation for it.

If Fata is to be eventually merged with KPK, it is common sense that the jurisdiction of PHC be extended.

Why should litigants from far off areas in Bajaur and Waziristan be required to travel to Islamabad, instead of Peshawar? Is the intention to create frustration, resentment, and anger against the reforms process itself?

Secondly, over time, appeals will pile up in IHC and cases will reach different stages of hearing. And then if the promised merger takes place the cases will have to be transferred to PHC. Has a thought been given to its implications when hearings will begin afresh in PHC?

It is akin to the blunder in history of Muhammad Tughlaq -- first shifting the capital and then reversing the decision. Let us learn from history.

Post of Chief Operating Officer (COO)

The creation of the new post of Chief Operating Officer for Fata as in-charge of all development projects and executive functions is fraught with grave implications which have not been thought through.

The March 2 decision of the Cabinet also contained a similar provision. It envisaged a new post of Chief Executive for Fata -- a position that was to be filled by a grade 22 civil or military officer, it was then stated. However, the proposal was stoutly opposed on the ground that appointment of a serving general to the post will displace the Governor and Presidency and shift the power effectively to Rawalpindi.

The new proposal has merely changed the nomenclature of the post from CE to COO and remains silent on who the COO will be. The functions of COO remain the same as that of the previously proposed position of CE.

The intention is the same: to appoint a serving General to this post, if not now then at some later stage, when conditions have been so created.

With a serving general appointed as COO, there are fears that contracts worth scores of billions will then go to FWO and NLC without bids as the civilian contractors will find the space squeezed. The locus of power will shift from Islamabad to Rawalpindi and the area further militarised and the black hole of Fata will deepen further.

Move to systematically displace civilian contractors was already afoot. At a meeting recently of the Senate Committee on Safron, it transpired that the 45 Army’s Engineers Division based in Peshawar sent out a letter in August last year instructing the political agents that no contract be given to civilian contractors who are reported by intelligence agencies to be engaged in "criminal and anti-state activities".

Read also: Confusion and indecisiveness 

On the pretext of questionable source reports the civilians are already being elbowed out arbitrarily from contracts. With a uniformed officer as COO the area will become a total black hole for civilians. Allegations of cross-border infiltration from the black hole will only gain wider currency. Such are the grave implications of this move. Fata needs to be de-militarised instead of further militarisation.

Taxation, Cess and Rahdari

The present powers of Political Agents to levy cess, taxes and rahdari is illegal and has no basis in any law. It must be demolished and replaced with budgetary allocations to Political Agents for meeting their administrative expenses, subject to audit by the Auditor General of Pakistan.

The existing system is arbitrary, illegal, and a tool for corruption. Even the Fata Reforms Committee report has also recognised that it has bred corruption on the one hand and enhanced commodity prices on the other.

The poor people are being fleeced arbitrarily even on transportation of merchandise of daily use raising prices steeply. The allegations of corruption and fleecing of people at check posts are disturbing.  Such perceptions should not be allowed to gain strength.

The assertion that levy of rahdari and cess had been authorised by the governor acting on behalf of the president is wrong. The governor cannot ask the political agents to raise monies illegally.

If the government is sincere in bringing Fata into the mainstream it must address the prevailing unjust levy of rahdari and taxes even as the rest of the reforms package is debated in the Parliament.

Merger

Keeping in view the administrative, social, cultural, linguistic, political and geographical conditions and that all roads from Fata led into KPK, merger into the province was most logical but the report has skirted the issue.

I am surprised that a coalition partner, a religio-political party (JUI), which has been advocating pan-Islamism and was not deterred by geographical boundaries between Muslim states now is opposing merger of two entities within the same country. It defies comprehension, defies logic.

Another coalition partner, a nationalist political party, Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP), which has been advocating bringing together the Pakhtuns of Balochistan, KP, Fata and Afghanistan, is now opposing the Pakhtuns of Fata coming closer to the Pakhtuns of KP.

It seems that when Nawaz Sharif found himself besieged by the Panama Papers the coalition partners found it easy to force him to give up on the Fata reforms process. The most serious casualty of Panama Papers is not the unceremonious exit of a Prime Minister; it is the subversion of Fata reforms process. If the agony of tribal people persists, who cares; as long as some succeed in claiming their pound of flesh.

The writer is a PPP Senator