The Federal Constitutional Court of Pakistan has ruled that high courts could not exercise suo motu jurisdiction under Article 199 of the Constitution and that unwarranted judicial interference in administrative and policy matters amounts to judicial overreach.
FCCP rules high courts cannot exercise suo motu powers under article 199
ISLAMABAD, Jun 30 (APP): The Federal Constitutional Court of Pakistan has ruled that high courts could not exercise suo motu jurisdiction under Article 199 of the Constitution and that unwarranted judicial interference in administrative and policy matters amounts to judicial overreach.
According to the detailed written judgment approved for reporting, a two-member bench comprising Justice Syed Hassan Azhar Rizvi and Justice Muhammad Karim Khan Agha partly allowed appeals against the Sindh High Court’s (SHC) orders dated October 27 and November 3, 2025, setting aside portions of those orders.
The Constitutional Bench held that the Sindh High Court had exceeded its constitutional jurisdiction by initiating suo motu proceedings against police authorities and interfering in police policy guidelines, observing that Article 199 did not confer suo motu powers on high courts.
During the proceedings, the Prosecutor General of Sindh argued that the directions issued by the Sindh High Court regarding arrest and detention had been derived from the Indian Supreme Court’s landmark D.K. Basu judgment of 1996. However, he submitted that those guidelines had since been overtaken by subsequent Pakistani legislation and regulations, including the Police Order 2002, the Sindh Act No. XI of 2019, the 2021 amendments to the Police Rules, 1934, the Torture and Custodial Death (Prevention and Punishment) Act, 2022, as well as standard operating procedures and other directives issued by the Inspector General of Police, Sindh. Therefore, he argued, the 1996 guidelines no longer held legal force in Pakistan.
The Advocate General Sindh also contended that the high court had overstepped its constitutional limits by interfering in policy matters, a position with which the Constitutional Bench agreed.
In its judgment, the Constitutional Bench held that all observations and directions issued by the Sindh High Court that fell outside the scope of the original constitutional petition (lis) could not be sustained.
The court, however, directed that the inquiries and investigations against the petitioners should continue strictly in accordance with the law. It further ordered that the relevant authorities should complete their proceedings independently, without being influenced by those observations or directions of the Sindh High Court that had been found to constitute judicial overreach.
