ISLAMABAD: The National Command Authority (NCA) an institution that oversees research, development, production and use of nuclear and space technologies has asked the Supreme Court to declare it a non-statutory organisation having complete control over its employees in view of grave international consequences.

Subsequently a special three-judge Supreme Court bench, headed by Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali, which had taken up the NCA`s plea issued notices to respondents namely chairman of Nescom, general manager of HR, Maritime Technologies Complex, and some employees of the authority. The date for next hearing will be fixed later.

The petition was filed by counsel Ahmer Bilal Soofi on behalf of the NCA seeking a review of its Jan 21, 2016, judgement and seeking to set aside the same.While taking up challenges to NCA`s service rules by some of its employees, the court in its Jan 21 judgement had held that rules framed under different sections of the National Command Authority Act, 2010, were statutory on all accounts and by every attribute.

Advocate Soofi told Dawn that NCA in its review petition had emphasised that all information pertaining to the conduct of its employees was secret information protected and privileged under Articles 6 and 7 of the Qanun-i-Shahadat Order, 1984, and also covered under Official Secrets Act, 1923.

But the Supreme Court in its earlier verdict, the review petition regretted, had completely overlooked what it claimed far-reaching strategic consequences by holding that `effective control of the authority over its activities for maintaining secrecy of its sensitive programmes in line with Pakistan`s international legal obligations, in particular the UNSC Resolution, cannot be affected by the statu-tory status of its rules`.

In addition to the petition, Attorney General Aushtar Ausaf has submitted a reply on behalf of the federal government highlighting that at present the country was facing serious challenges and that there was no dearth of material to demonstrate that international powers wanted to see Pakistan`s nuclear programme rolled back.

In UN General Assembly`s Disarmament Committee, a discussion is also under way with special reference to Pakistan`s nuclear programme and more recently Marshall Islands has filed a case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against Pakistan and severalother states seeking rolling back of their nuclear programmes.

Thus any judgment of the Supreme Court declaring rules under the NCA Act as statutory will have far-reaching repercussions from international point of view which can be viewed as evidence of Pakistan`s failure or non-compliance of its international o bligations, the government claimed.