Constitution of NFC: IHC to take up petition challenging notification today

The Islamabad High Court (IHC) will take up Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz MNA Engineer Khurram Dastgir Khan's petition, challenging the notification for constitution of the National Finance Commission (NFC), on Thursday (today).
A single bench of the IHC comprising Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb will hear the case.
The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)-led federal government on May 12 formed the 10th NFC to announce the new award.
The Ministry of Finance notified constitution of the 11-member commission after approval by the federal and provincial members, and its terms of reference by President Arif Alvi.
The president also authorised the Adviser to the Prime Minister on Finance, Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, to chair NFC meetings in the absence of the federal finance minister.
In his petition, Dastgir requested the court to declare the said notification as illegal being ultra vires sub-articles (1) and (2) of Article 160 of the Constitution.
He filed the petition through advocates, Umer Gilani and Barrister Mohsin Nawaz Ranjha.
The petitioner further prayed before the court to declare that impugned notification dated 12th May, 2020 cannot be given retrospective effect and any proceeding of the Commission, which took place prior to May 12, 2020, were of no legal effect.
Khurram Dastagir requested the court to declare that any proceedings of the commission where even one of the duly appointed members of the Commission is absent shall be void since Article 160 does not provide for any minimum operational quorum.
He termed the notification as unconstitutional and liable to be set aside.
He prayed to the court to declare that in the exercise of their functions under Article 160, the president is bound to act on and in accordance with the advice of the federal cabinet or the prime minister, where the governors of the provinces are bound to act on and in accordance with the advice of the provincial cabinets or the chief minister, and absence of such advice shall render the appointments process defective.
The petitioner contended that the basic framework of the state structure laid down by the colonial masters of the sub-continent was a centralised, centralising and unitary structure and the winning provincial autonomy and fiscal de-centralisation was one of the principle demands of our independence movement.
He adopted, "In pursuance of ideals espoused by our independence movement, the Preamble of the Constitution makes it abundantly clear that Pakistan shall be a federation of otherwise autonomous units and not a unitary state."
The PML-N leader continued that the most important institution created in the Constitution for this purpose i.e. determining the center-province revenue distribution ratio is the NFC, and this institution has been a part of every single Constitution of Pakistan and has been progressively empowered.