PESHAWAR: The members of the boards of governors of 10 medical teaching institutions (MTI) in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have challenged in Peshawar High Court the decision of the caretaker provincial cabinet to dissolve all these boards.

The members have filed 10 almost identical petitions related to their respective BoG, requesting the court to declare as illegal, without lawful authority and to set aside the impugned decision of the caretaker cabinet taken in its meeting on March 16, 2023.

The petitioners requested the court to declare that the role of caretaker setup was confined to running day-to-day affairs of the state with the help of available machinery and could not take policy decisions and permanent measures including recruitments, making appointments, transfers and postings and removals.

They sought interim relief from the court requesting it to stop the government from taking any action against the petitioners in the light of the impugned decision.

They sought directives of the court for implementation of a judgment of Supreme Court of Pakistan in line with spirit of Part VIII of Constitution and section 230 of Elections Act, 2017.

Eight of the petitions were filed through Advocate Ali GoharDurrani whereas the two others were moved through former advocate general Shumail Ahmad Butt.

The respondents in the petitions are: KP government through its chief secretary, provincial secretaries of health and administration departments and Election Commission of Pakistan through its secretary.

In the same cabinet meeting of March 16, the government had also decided to dissolve the policy board of MTIs and subsequently on March 28 the government through a notification sacked its members.

Four of the members of the policy board have challenged their removal in the high court and recently the court has suspended the said notification to the extent of those petitioners.

The previous Pakistan Tehreek-iInsaf government had passed Medical Teaching Institutions Reforms Act (MTIRA) in 2015 to run the teaching hospitals through BoGs instead of health department.

As per law, BoGs are authorised to make top appointments such as medical director, dean, hospital and nursing directors from the market on competitive salaries to run the hospitals and their affiliated medical colleges.

The petitioners stated that the BoGs of respective MTIs had several achievements to their credit and it was only natural that the boards would be allowed to complete their tenure. However, they said that to their utmost surprise, a summary was moved by the health secretary to remove the members of BoGs. They said that the summary was placed before the caretaker cabinet, which approved it on March 16.

They contended that the minutesof the said meeting clearly reflected thatchiefsecretary andhealthsecretary recorded their dissent by making it clear in unequivocal terms that the caretaker government lacked the authority to dissolve boards as per Section 230 of Elections Act.

They said that section 230 of Elections Act prohibited the caretaker government from making any policy decision in the province and thus its decision was illegal and without lawful authority.

The petitioners contended that as soon as the caretaker setup was appointed, its mandate under the Constitution was to hold free and fair elections in aid of ECP and no caretaker cabinet could make policy decision even in relation to appointment and posting of civil servants.

They stated that the principle was settled by Supreme Court in a case after the Constitution (Eighteenth Amendment) Act, 2010, was passed. They said that the Supreme Court had ruled that a caretaker government was empowered only to carry out dayto-day affairs of the state with the help of available machinery/ resources/manpower and it could not take any policy decision and permanent measures including recruitments, making appointments, transfers and postings of government servants.

`It must leave such matters to the elected government, which takes charge as a result of elections,` the court had ruled.

The petitioners also referred to a judgment of PHC wherein it was ruled that the caretaker government enjoyed limited powers of administrative continuity within the available resources while preventing any major decision from being taken.