Law: Constitution of Pakistan, 1973

Section: 199

(a)    Constitution of Pakistan-------Art. 199---Judicial review---Scope---High Court may review lawfulness of a decision or action made by a public body or may invalidate laws, acts and governmental actions that are incompatible with a higher authority---In exercise of power of judicial review of governmental policy, Court can neither act or represent itself as an appellate authority with the aim of scrutinizing the rightness or aptness of a policy, nor it acts as an advisor to the Executives on matters of policy, which they are entitled to formulate---Judicial review can be sought when decision maker fails to observe statutory procedures, misdirects itself in law, exercises a power wrongly or the policy decision is so unreasonable that no reasonable authority could ever have come to it---In absence of any violation of Constitutional guarantee or patent illegality, such policy decision cannot be invalidated by High Court in exercise of Constitutional jurisdiction.S.M.C. No.15 of 2010; 2013 SCMR 304; Government of Balochistan throughChief Secretary Quetta and others v. Dr. Muhammad Tariq Jafar and others 2020 SCMR 1689; Syed Azam Shah v. Federation of Pakistan 2022 SCMR 201; Federation of Pakistan v. Shuja Sharif 2023 SCMR 129 and Senior General Manager, Pakistan Railways and others v. Muhammad Pervaiz 2024 SCMR 581 rel.(b)    Civil service-------Recruitment process---Age limit---Relaxation---Petitioners / candidates were aggrieved of rejection of their applications for posts in question as they were overage---Held, that Punjab Government was empowered to make laws / policies in view of ground realities and particular circumstances---There was no justification that laws / decisions of other provinces could be made applicable to Punjab Government---Petitioners were granted age relaxation of five years as permissible under law but even then they could not qualify as they were overage---High Court declined to interfere in recruitment process as no illegality or irregularity was pointed out by petitioners / candidates, and no mala fide had been attributed to the concerned authorities---Constitutional petition was dismissed,…