Former Senate chairman Raza Rabbani on Friday said the Special Investment Facilitation Council was “infringing on provincial autonomy” by taking up education-related matters.
The statement comes a day after the SIFC convened a meeting to review a new education policy and deliberate on an “education emergency” proposal.
Rabbani condemned the SIFC taking up the question of OOSC and the education policy.
In a statement, he noted that the council had been created through a notification that did not “allow it to take up education or matters ancillary thereto”.
“Education is a devolved subject from the Government of India Act, 1935 but usurped by the federal government,” the former senator said. “The 18th Amendment, with the deletion of the Concurrent List, from the Fourth Schedule [of] Constitution, 1973, removed any doubts, if any existed,” he added.
“The SIFC is infringing on provincial autonomy,” the PPP leader said, asserting that if any coordination was required on the matter of OOSC, then the appropriate “constitutional forum” was the Council of Common Interests (CCI).
“The federal government can only take up the education policy to the extent of the federal territory and not the provinces,” Rabbani emphasised. “If any coordination in policy is required, the CCI is the constitutional forum and not the SIFC,” he reiterated.
The senior politician further stated, “The federal government must realise that Pakistan is a participatory federation under the Constitution and not a one (single) unit.”
