Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The legal anomalies exclusively pointed out by Daily Times right after the appointment of the Islamabad mayor as the chairman of the Capital Development Authority (CDA) were Friday endorsed by the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Friday while declaring the said appointment illegal and unlawful.

Mayor Shaikh Ansar Aziz was appointed the CDA chairman by federal government on December 6, 2016 whereas Daily Times had carried a story titled: “Legal anomalies in appointment of mayor as CDA chief” on December 8, 2016, immediately after his appointment.

It was pointed out that the aforementioned appointment was against the spirit of clauses ‘e’ and ‘f’ of section-8 of the CDA Ordinance, 1960. The judgement passed in the case also declared the appointment ultra vires and illegal on the basis of the same clauses.

According to clause (f) of section 8 a person is disqualified for being appointed as a member if he or she is for the time being disqualified from membership of anybody established by or under any law for the time being in force, of which the constituent members are wholly or partly chosen by means of election.

It was reported that according to the Local Government Act, 2015, the mayor was ineligible to contest any other election without resigning from his current position. Furthermore, he is also barred from holding dual offices simultaneously.

The judgement endorsed the aforementioned anomaly while quoting these laws and stated that the clause (f) of section 8 will definitely be attracted in case of the mayor. Meanwhile, according to clause (e) of Section 8, no person shall be or shall continue to be a member who has a financial interest in any scheme or a conflicting interest directly or indirectly between his interests as a member and his private interests and has failed to disclose such an interest in writing to the federal government.

To put it simple, this scribe had reported that the CDA ordinance restricts anyone from becoming a member, who had a clash of interests with the civic body. Though it was reported from a different angle and it was pointed out that the devolution process of assets and employees is under way and a tug of war between the CDA and the Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad (MCI) exist and in fact, the mayor is the permanent head of the MCI and his appointment as the CDA chairman means that there is nobody left behind, who will protect or defend the rights of the CDA.

But, the same point was not made part of the petition by petitioners and they only argued the conflict of interest on the basis of a company owned by Mayor Shaikh Ansar Aziz, which were dealing with the CDA in past.

The judgement after detailed discussion on ‘clash of interest’ also cited the clause (e) of the section 8 as one of the reason for declaring the appointment as illegal. Furthermore, the story had raised a legal question about the silence of CDA Ordinance over the wide space for the federal government while appointing board members as there is no specific qualification mentioned in the law in this regard, which means that the government can appoint anybody whom it feels fit for the job as it had done in the case of Shaikh Ansar Aziz.

Justice Athar Minallah in his judgement not only answered the said question in detail but he also settled it once for all that the due diligence in the selection process is inevitable for the validity of the appointments on key posts.

It was declared that the appointment of a member ought to have a nexus with the object, purpose and functions of the board of the authority, which means that the relevant qualifications and experience must be count before making such appointment. For instance, the appointment of a financial adviser would require expertise in the field of finance.

The judgement may affect appointment of other members notified against the required qualification.

Published in Daily Times, December 30th 2017.