IHC bench to take up Dastgir's petition against NFC Award today.

ISLAMABAD -- A division bench of the Islamabad High Court (IHC) will Monday (today) take up a petition of Engineer Khurram Dastgir Khan Member National Assembly (MNA) belonging to Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) challenging the notification regarding constitution of National Finance Commission (NFC) award.

In this regard, a single bench of IHC comprising Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb earlier suggested to constitute a dual bench to conduct hearing of the petition and sent the file of the case to Chief Justice of IHC Justice Athar Minallah for the approval.

In this matter, the petitioner's lawyer adopted that the Constitution of Pakistan explicitly states that the country is to be run by elected representatives.

He contended that nowhere in the constitution does it state that the PM's adviser on finance can be the convener instead of the finance minister.

The NFC is meant to distribute financial resources among the federal government and the provinces. It includes distribution of taxes collected by the federal government which form a divisible pool.

According to Article 160 of the Constitution, the president constitutes the NFC after every five years for a period of five years. Once there is a consensus of all stakeholders on a particular formula to distribute the finances, the award is implemented for the next five years.

The 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 federal and provincial members and its terms of reference by President Arif Alvi. The commission will, however, effectively consist of 10 members as the...

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