ISLAMABAD:
The Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) has ruled that the Sindh High Court (SHC) committed “judicial overreach” by exercising suo motu jurisdiction against police officers and interfering in political directives without justification.
Such powers, the FCC stated, are not available to the superior courts under Article 199 of the Constitution.
In a two-page ruling, a two-member FCC court vacated the SHC’s orders dated October 27 and November 3, 2025, passed in Constitutional Petition No S-1139 of 2025, to the extent that they exercised suo motu jurisdiction against police officials and interfered in policy matters.
“The impugned orders… are set aside as being the result of assumption of suo motu jurisdiction not vested in the High Court under Article 199 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, 1973, as the observations contained therein amount to judicial overreach,” the judgment states.
During the proceedings, it was argued before the FCC that the SHC’s instructions relating to internal police reforms and monitoring of investigative procedures, issued in the exercise of its judicial jurisdiction when such matters were not before the court in the petitions under consideration, amounted to judicial usurpation of executive and administrative functions.
The Sindh Advocate General also contended that the SHC judge committed judicial overreach in issuing the impugned orders and failed to take into account that courts, as a general rule, should refrain from interfering in political directives.
The FCC backed that position, saying in its order that it “fully agreed” with the Sindh advocate general’s allegations.
However, the constitutional court clarified that the investigations already initiated and the investigations to be carried out against the petitioners in both cases will continue strictly in accordance with the law.
The FCC directed that the ongoing proceedings be conducted independently and without being influenced by any observations or directions contained in the orders of the SHC which went beyond the scope of the dispute before the learned Single Judge.
“The investigations initiated and the investigation to be carried out against the petitioners, in both the petitions, will continue in accordance with law without being influenced by any observation/directions, which go beyond the lis (dispute) fixed before the single judge of the High Court in the constitutional petition,” said the order written by Justice Hasan Azhar Rizvi.
