Sindh High Court Orders Qualified Regular NIRC Chairman

Independently written and published by Shahbaz Shah Legal Journal.

Federal government directed to make a regular appointment

The Sindh High Court has directed the federal government to appoint a regular Chairman of the National Industrial Relations Commission who satisfies the qualifications prescribed by law.

The development was reported on 26 August 2026. The order was made by a two-member constitutional bench headed by Justice Adnan-ul-Karim Memon.

According to the reported order, the federal government retains the power to appoint the NIRC Chairman, but that power must be exercised within the Industrial Relations Act, 2012 and the rules made under it. An administrative description such as "acting", "temporary" or "stopgap" cannot by itself give an otherwise ineligible member the statutory authority reserved for the Chairman.

The acting-chairman arrangement under challenge

The petition challenged a reported 18 May arrangement under which Sardar Tahir Sabir, an NIRC member and a retired district and sessions judge, was asked to perform the functions of Chairman until a regular appointment was made.

The petitioner argued that the governing law did not authorize the federal government to avoid the prescribed appointment process through an interim arrangement. It was also contended that the member entrusted with the functions was neither the senior-most member nor qualified for appointment as Chairman under the applicable rules.

The federal side questioned the petition's maintainability and maintained that the government was competent to make the arrangement. Its position was that the member had only been entrusted with the Chairman's functions until the regular post could be filled.

What the statutory framework requires

Section 53 of the Industrial Relations Act, 2012 establishes the NIRC as a statutory commission. Section 53(2) requires it to consist of at least ten full-time members, including the Chairman. Sections 53(3) and 53(4) state that the qualifications and manner of appointment of both the Chairman and members are to be prescribed, and that appointments must be made in that prescribed manner.

The distinction is functional as well as formal. Under section 55, the Chairman exercises general superintendence over the Commission and constitutes its full and other benches. The office is therefore not merely an administrative title that can be detached from the statutory qualification governing it.

The bench reportedly noted that the Appointment of Chairman and Members (Qualification) Rules, 2022 prescribe different eligibility standards for the two offices: the Chairman must be a former judge of the Supreme Court or a High Court, while a retired district judge may qualify for appointment as a member.

The Court's reported reasoning

The Court treated the Chairman as an express part of the Commission's statutory composition, not a position created only for administrative convenience.

On that reasoning, the executive may select and appoint a Chairman, but only from within the class made eligible by the parent Act and the 2022 Rules. Calling a member's assumption of functions temporary does not amend the rules, convert the member into a qualified Chairman or transfer powers that Parliament vested specifically in that office.

The reported order therefore separates two questions that should not be confused:

• The federal government has authority to make the appointment.
• The government must exercise that authority through the statutory qualifications and mechanism.

Executive discretion operates inside the law; it does not include a discretion to suspend the law's eligibility conditions.

The petition's outcome — and an important limit

The petition was disposed of with the parties' consent on the proposition that a regular Chairman would be appointed. The Court directed the federal government to appoint a person possessing the qualifications prescribed by the 2022 Rules within a reasonable period.

The report also states that the bench did not decide the petition on its full merits or interfere with the Cabinet's policy decision. It did not report that the May arrangement was formally quashed.

This distinction matters. The order is a clear institutional direction to complete a lawful regular appointment, but it should not be overstated as a final merits judgment resolving every possible question about temporary charge arrangements.

Existing NIRC decisions are not automatically invalid

The Court also referred to the statutory protection for the Commission's proceedings. Section 55(5) of the Industrial Relations Act provides that an act, proceeding, decision or award of the Commission or a bench does not become invalid merely because of an absence, vacancy or defect in its constitution.

The ruling therefore does not automatically reopen every NIRC case decided during the disputed arrangement. A party challenging a particular decision would still need an independent legal ground; the alleged vacancy or defect alone is not enough under the saving clause.

That protection avoids institutional paralysis while still requiring the government to cure the appointment problem prospectively.

Why the development matters

The NIRC exercises important jurisdiction in the Islamabad Capital Territory and in trans-provincial industrial relations. Its functions include adjudicating industrial disputes, determining collective bargaining agents, addressing unfair labour practices and dealing with individual grievances within the federal statutory field.

A defect at the head of such a body is not a minor staffing issue. The Chairman supervises the institution and constitutes benches that decide disputes affecting employers, workers and trade unions across provincial boundaries.

The broader legal principle is equally important: where legislation creates a public office, distinguishes it from other offices and prescribes qualifications for it, the executive cannot achieve indirectly through a label what it could not lawfully do through a regular appointment.

What should happen next

The federal government should complete the regular appointment through a transparent process and publicly identify how the selected person satisfies the 2022 Rules. Because the Court used the expression "within a reasonable period" rather than fixing a reported calendar deadline, compliance should be prompt enough to prevent another temporary arrangement from becoming indefinite.

For legal certainty, the official appointment notification should clearly state the statutory source, the appointee's qualifying judicial office, the effective date and the end of the stopgap arrangement.

As of this publication, the available news report did not reproduce the petition number, the name of the second bench member or a link to the signed order. Those details should be added when the official court record becomes publicly available. This report therefore distinguishes the verified statutory text from facts attributed to the reported court order.