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WEEKLY
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| Bhagwandas declines FPSC job |
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Tuesday, November 24, 2009
By Tariq Butt
ISLAMABAD: Justice (retd) Bhagwandas says some senior government officials offered him the post of the Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC) chairman in May this year but he told them that he is barred from holding any office till Dec 14, 2009.
They returned satisfied, he told The News. He informed them that clause 2 of Article 207 of the Constitution placed a bar on retired Supreme Court and high court judges to accept an office of profit till the expiration of two years from their retirement.
Justice Bhagwandas read out the relevant provision, which said: a person who has held office as a judge of the Supreme Court or a high court shall not hold any office of profit in the service of Pakistan, not being a judicial or quasi-judicial office or the office of chief election commissioner or of chairman or member of a law commission or of chairman or member of the Council of Islamic Ideology, before the expiration of two years after he ceased to hold that office.
The former judge said when the government made the offer to him he was busy with the assignment given to him by the Supreme Court about the examination of oil prices. After that, he said the government has not contacted him. However, he said he was hale and hearty.
Under Article 242, the president appoints the FPSC chairman in his discretion. A senior official source said the president was waiting for the end of the two-year constitutional restriction on Justice Bhagwandas to appoint him as the FPSC chairman, a position that is lying vacant for over seven months now.
Justice Bhagwandas had not refused to accept the slot when the government leaders had contacted him and he had just pointed out the two-year constitutional bar on him. If appointed, he would be the first retired judge of a superior court to become the FPSC chairman. Mostly, this slot has been given to retired Army generals.
Meanwhile, during a chat with this correspondent, presidential spokesman Farhatullah Babar termed incorrect a report about the appointment of former PCO judge of the Lahore High Court Justice (retd) Anwarul Haq as the FPSC chairman.
After Lt-Gen (retd) Shahid Hamid, who retired as FPSC chairman on March 30 on completing his three-year term, the office is lying vacant amid reports that the working of the organisation has suffered a lot with inordinate delay in making different appointments.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
