P L D 1976 Quetta 77 (PLP)

ZAFAR HUSSAIN MIRZA, J.-We had heard these petitions on 19-5-1976 and by short orders dismissed both of them, for reasons to be recorded later. As common questions of fact and law were raised in the two petitions, these are the reasons for the aforesaid decisions.

2. The controversy in these two petitions relates 'co the admission to the first year M.B.,B.S. Class in Bolan Medical College, Quetta, for reserved seats allocated for boys of Kachhi District, for the academic session 1976-77. For this academic session the admission policy .vas announced by the Government of Baluchistan on 5-2-1976 whereby 10 seats were reserved for boys of District Kachhi. The applications for admission in Bolan Medical College, Quetta, for this session were invited and y6-i2-1975 was prescribed as the last date for submission of application forms. The two petitioners were among the candidates who submitted their application forms for admission. According to the prospectus of the Bolan Medical College, Quetta and the admission policy the selection for admission of candidates was to be made by the Selection Committee constituted for the purpose headed by the Secretary, Health Department, Government of Baluchistan. A right of appeal was provided against the decision of the Selection Committee to the High Powered Committee headed by the Additional Chief Secretary whose decision was prescribed to be final. According to the General Rules for admission contained in the prospectus the admission to the Bolan Medical College, Quetta for the various seats was open only "to local bona fide residents of Baluchistan strictly on merit".

3. Constitutional Petition No. 35 of 1976 is by Muhammad Yaqoob who as stated above, was one of the applicants .for admission to a seat reserved for boys of Kachhi District and so were respondents Nos. I to 6 candidates from Kachhi District. The Selection Committee considered the applications of the various candidates and selected, ten out of them for the ten reserved seats of boys for the Kachhi District. The applicant was not one of them as he was excluded in the final merit list prepared for the ten seats on the basis of marks. However. respondents Nos. 1 to 4, were selected against four out of ten seats. Respondents Nos. 5 and 6 were placed on that waiting list according to their merit position at Serial Nos. 1 and 3 respectively, whereas the position of the petitioner on the waiting list was No. 4.

4. The petitioner thereupon filed an appeal before the High Powered Committee which was also rejected and the petitioner informed accordingly vide letter No. 1-1/PA (75-76) Health/696 Government of Baluchistan, Health and Social Department, Quetta dated 5th April 1976. The reason assigned for the rejection of the appeal of the petitioner was that he had secured only 37o marks in F.Sc. while the last student selected had obtained 386 marks. The petitioner has, therefore, filed the present Constitutional Petition challenging the' order of the High Powered Committee admitting respondents Nos. 1 to 4 in the Bolan Medical College, Quetta from Kachhi District as illegal and without lawful authority. The petitioner has further challenged the placing of respondents Nos. 5 and 6 on the waiting list from Kachhi District.

5. The case of the petitioner is that all the first ,six respondents ware not in fact bona fide local residents of Kachhi District anti therefore had no right to be considered for admission as against the reserved seats for that District.

6. Mr. Khalid Malik, learned counsel for the petitioner, in support of the contention that the aforesaid respondents were not residents of Kachhi District, took us through the various documents filed with the petition. According to the learned counsel the Certificate of Residence obtained by respondent No. 1 Gahir Alam was cancelled by the Deputy Commissioner, Kachhi District by his order dated 27-2-1976. As regards respondent No. 2 Sawn Das it was contended that no certificate was issued to him by the District Magistrate, Kachhi is the first place ; on the contrary it was certified by the latter in the aforementioned order dated Z-2-1976 that Sajan Das was not a local resident of District Kachhi. Additionally the learned counsel referred to tire Domicile Certificate dated 22-12-1.947 issued in favour of the father of respon dent No. 1 which shows his place of residence as Quetta. For respondent No. 3 learned counsel urged that he was local resident of Mastung Kalat District and for this purpose he relied upon a certificate issued by the Assistant Commissioner, Mastung dated 4-8-1972 saying that respondent No. 3 Ahmed Khan was a permanent resident of Mastung District. As for respondent No. 4 Rafi-un Shah although in the petition the petitioner had alleged that he was also not a resident of District Kachhi but of District Quetta, learned counsel during the course of the arguments dropped this allegation and conceded that respondent No. 4 was genuinely a local resident of District Kacbhi. As against respondent No. 5 Abdul Sattar and respondent No. 6 Muhammad Fazal the allegation was that they were both not bona fide residents of District Kachhi as they were getting Scholarships from District Kalat and District Quetta respectively. Learned counsel further relied upon the Certificate dated 17-9-1973 issued by the Assistant Commissioner, Sarawan Mastung saying that Abdul Sattar respondent No. 5 was a bona fide resident of Pringabad Tehsil, District Mastung.

7. Learned counsel for the petitioner next contended that the High Powered Committee in not assigning any reason for rejecting the over whelming evidence produced by the petitioner at the hearing of his appeal showing the aforesaid respondents not to be residents of District Kachhi, had acted arbitrarily and consequently the impugned order was liable to be quashed. He further urged that the aforesaid action of the High powered Committee was in violation of the instructions contained in the prospectus which provides that the reserved seats allocated to a district were to be given to bona fide residents of that district on the basis of merit. In this connection he-relied upon Miss Nasim Kausar Arbab v. Government of Pakistan and others (P L D 1972 Kar. 563) wherein it was held that in case of admission to Medical College which is subject to instructions contained in the prospectus, if there is violation of such instructions a writ petition would be maintainable and the High Court has jurisdiction to declare such admission as without lawful authority.

8. Mr. Munawar Ahmed, learned counsel replying on behalf of respondent No. 2 submitted that the said respondent was a permanent resident of Kachhi District. Counsel urged that this fact is supported by the Residence Certificate dated 5-11-1974 issued by the District Magistrate, Kachhi, saying that respondent No. 2 is a permanent resident of Mithri District Kachhi. Learned counsel further urged and rightly so that this Certificate was valid for all intends and purposes, He -contended that observations made in the order of Deputy Commissioner, Kachhi dated 27-2-1976 to the effect that respondent No. 2 was not a resident of that District were of no effect as they were obviously made ex parts and without notice to the respondent. The learned counsel next referred to the letter of Minister for Agriculture, Food and Finance, Government of Baluchistan dated 17-6-1975 addressed to the Chief Minister Government of Sind wherein respondent No. 2 was shown by the Minister as a resident of the village of the Minister in Kachhi District. It may be stated that this letter was written in connection with nomination of respondent No. 2 in the year 1975 against one of the three seats reserved for Baluchistan students in Medical Colleges in Sind.

9. Mr. Munammad Anwar, learned counsel for respondent No. 3 also contended that the respondent was a permanent resident of District Kachhi, and not of Mastung Kalat District as alleged. In support of the respondent': case learned counsel referred to a number of documents produced consisting of entries in the Revenue Record showing the name of respondent No. 3 and his father as owner of land in Kachhi District. Above all he relied upon the Local Certificate dated 17-12-1975 issued by the District Magistrate, Kachbi saying that respondent No. 3 is a bona fide local resident of Mauza Khai, Tehsil Dhadar, District Kachhi. Learned counsel challenged the genuine ness of the certificate issued by the Assistant Commissioner, Sarwan Mastung in which it was stated that respondent was resident of that District by contending that the Assistant Commissioner, is not empowered under the prospectus to issue such a certificate.

10. The learned Advocate-General, Baluchistan replying to the conten tions of the learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that respondent No. 1 had produced a Residence Certificate issued by the District Magistrate, Kachhi in his favour and that he had secured 441 marks which were the highest among all the candidates from the District. He further submitted that the High Powered Committee had considered all the evidence produced in support and against the various selected candidates and had arrived at a finding that the selected candidates were bona fide residents of District Kachhi. Accordingly when the final merit list was prepared, the petitioner did not qualify for admission on merit as he was below the first ten selected candidates, The learned Advocate. General next contended that in the Extraordinary Constitutional Jurisdiction the petitioner was not entitled to challenge the findings of fact arrived at by the High Powered Committee while considering selection of candidates. He placed reliance on two unreported judgments of this Court in Constitutional Petitions Nos. 16 and 30 of 1975 where in almost similar circumstances this Court ruled that it was not open to the Court to go into questions of fact and sit in judgment against the findings given thereon by the College Authorities in the matter of admission:

11. We have considered the respective contentions of the parties and we find great force in "the submission of the learned Advocate-General. The power of judicial review available to this Court under the Constitutional Jurisdiction does not extend to scrutiny or investigation into the questions of fact or appraisal of evidence touching the issues the determination whereof falls within the scope of authority of Administrative Tribunals or Executive Functionaries except, perhaps where the finding is on .the face of it perverse and unsupported by any evidence. We have examined the Rules contained in the prospectus of the Bolan Medical College, Quetta for the academic sessions 1976-77 and find that the power of selection of candidates according to the prescribed conditions initially vests in the Selection Committee whose decisions are liable to be challenged before the High Powered Committee whose decision is prescribed to be final. At page 9 of the prospectus under the title "Admissions Selection" Rule 6 provides as under : "Such candidates whose particulars, mark certificates or any other documents submitted with the admission forms are found to be incorrect or wrong in any way, or whose authentification is doubtful, their names will be struck off the College rolls any time even if the 'candidate has been admitted and shall be debarred for admission for ever. A bare perusal of this Rule makes it abundantly clear that the scrutiny of the documents and other particulars given by the candidates falls within the power of the authorities of the college and in case it is found that such documents or particulars were incorrect or not genuine the candidate can be debarred and his admission can be cancelled even if he is admitted to the College. This clearly leads to the inference that this power would be available to the two Committees respectively for selection of candidates at the time of consideration of applications. It would be anomalous to argue that this power can only be exercised if the admission is granted and not at the time of consideration of applications for admission. Thus we are of the confirmed view that the Committee had the jurisdiction to evaluate the various documents and other evidence produced before them on the question of residence of candidate and come to a finding on the issue. 12. "The only remaining contention of the petitioner to consider is as to the effect of not assigning reasons by the High Powered Committee for their impugned decision in appeal. By letter dated 5th April 1970 the petitioner was informed by the Secretary, Health & Social Welfare Depart ment, Government of Baluchistan that his appeal was rejected by the Higher, Appellate Committee, after hearing him and the respondents and scrutinizing documents, for the reasons that he had secured only 376 marks in F. Sc. while toe last student selected had obtained 386 marks. Now the contention is that the High Powered Committee has not written a speaking order showing the reason for rejecting the documents produced by the petitioner in support of his arguments that the first three respondents were not bona fide residents of District Kachhi. The learned counsel for the petitioner did not support this contention with any rule in the prospectus or with any case-law on the' subject. We inquired from the learned Advocate-General whether High Powered Committee had written a detailed order giving their reasons for rejecting the evidence produced by the petitioner and he very candidly replied that in their minutes the Committee had only recorded their decision as was communicated to the petitioner. He, however, submitted that the Committee had applied their mind to all the arguments advanced before them as well as the documents submitted before them, before arriving at their decision to reject the appeal of the petitioner. In this connection he referred to the written-statement filed in this case by the Health Secretary, Dr. Abdul Khaliq wherein he, inter alia, categorically stated that the Committee had declared the first four respondents as selected in spite of the order dated 27-2-1976 passed by the Deputy Commissioner, Kachhi, cancelling the Domicile Certificates of the respondents Nos. 2 and

4. The petitioner has not placed on record the copy of the appeal filed by him to enable us to see what specific grounds were taken in support of the appeal. However, it is quite apparent that the impugned order speaks of the Committee having scrutinized all the documents which would obviously include the documents produced by petitioner.

13. We have considered the contention and have reached the conclusion that the contention must fail. It is no doubt true that the Supreme Court of Pakistan has on two occasions expressed the view that a judicial order must t)e a speaking order manifesting by itself that the Court has applied its mind to the resolution of the issues involved for their proper adjudication. In Adamjee Limited v. Province of East Pakistan (P L D 1959 S C (Pak.) 272) which was a cast in which a Writ Petition was summarily dismissed by the High Court without assigning reasons for their decision, their Lordships observed : "There are two basic objections to this procedure (1) the Supreme Court has no idea of the grounds on which the application was dismissed and is thus deprived of the benefit of the High Court's opinion, and (2) the non-suited party has no means of knowing that the questions raised by him were considered by the High Court." And further observed "But where there has been no prior adjudication of a matter anal substantial questions of law are raised by an applicant invoking the writ jurisdiction of the High Court, it is, in our opinion, the un doubted duty of the High Court to state what the precise point raised by the applicant was and the grounds on which it was rejected. This is all the more necessary where an appeal in the case lies to the Supreme Court as of right." In another case reported as Mollah Ejahar Ali v. Government of Pakistan (P L D 1970 S C 173) where a petition under the Constitutional Jurisdiction involving question of interpretation of an important section in an enactment, was dismissed by a single sentence to the effect that there was no substance in the petition, the Supreme Court observed "There is no doubt that the High Court's order which is unfortunately purfunctory gives the impression of hasty off-hand decision which, although found to be correct in its result is not deficient in its content . . . . . . This will reduce the whole judicial process to authori tarian decrees without the need for logic and reasoning which have always been the traditional pillars of judicial pronouncements investing them with their primary excellence of propriety and judicial balance. Litigants who bring their disputes to the law Courts with the incidential hardships and expenses involved do expect a patient and a judicious treatment of their cases and their determination by proper orders. A judicial order must be a speaking order manifesting by itself that the Court has applied its mind to the .resolution of the issues involved for their proper adjudication. The ultimate result may be reached by a labourous effort but if the final order does not bear an imprint of that effort and on the contrary discloses arbitrariness of thought and action, the feeling with its painful results, that justice has neither been done nor seems to have been done is inescapable." There can, therefore, be no doubt that a judicial order must not be barred and must disclose the rational process by which the final decision teas been arrived at and in the absence of such reasons the order cannot be sustained as the order would then clearly smack of arbitrariness. However, the question that arises for consideration is whether this principle is applicable to executive orders as well. In the instant case the impugned order was C not passed by judicial or quasi judicial tribunal but was passed by a body or persons holding administrative posts and performing administrative functions. The High Powered Committee which was responsible for reviewing the decisions of the Selection Committee cannot by any stretch of imagination be held to be a judicial or quasi-judicial tribunal. It was not charged with adjudication of civil rights of the citizens as such. Indeed no candidate can claim to have vested right for admission in an educational institution like the Bolan Medical College, Quetta, which is owned, controlled and managed by the Government. The necessity for framing the policy or the rules for admission contained in the prospectus, obviously arises due to the fact that the seats in the College are limited and cannot cater for all the candidates who choose to apply for admission. The only course left for the Government to adopt was to have some rational classification and fix categories equitably to distribute the teaching facilities among the populace of the province. This had been done by reserving seats on population basis for male and female candidates district-wise to be filled on the basis of merit. The fact that a particularly candidate fulfils the qualifi cations for being admitted to a reserved seat from a district does not ipso facto create a vested right to admission. Such a candidate may at best be described D as a vested beneficiary but until such time he is finally granted admission by the Selection Committee and the decision is affirmed in appeal if any, by the High Powered Committee no vested right is created in favour of such a candidate. In Raffiud Din and others v. Chief Settlement and Rehabilitation Commissioner and others (P L D 1971 S C 252) which was a case under the Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act, 1958, while considering the contention advanced on behalf of the appellants that they had acquired an indefeasible vested right to the transfer of a Cinema House in dispute on the date they filled their application for transfer, under paragraph 15(2) of the Schedule to the said Act, Hamoodur Rahman, C. J. (as he then was) observed : "There was no question of displaced persons coming to Pakistan from territories which now constitute India being entitled as of right to get properties in Pakistan is lieu of properties left by them in India. The Evacuee Laws were designed to alleviate the hardship and misery of as large a number of displaced persons as possible who had been uprooted as a result of the setting up of the two dominions of India and Pakistan by rehabilitating them and in this sense too it was "fallacious to conceive of a claim . . . . . as being in the nature of right or interest in the property". It was rather "a question of purely granting a benefit or privilege" and it was, therefore, within compe tence of the authorities to determine as to who were the persons best fitted for the grant of such benefit." And further : "It is in this sense that it has been said that a claimant displaced person is in a position of a vested beneficiary so far as the properties in the compensation pool are concerned, but this is not the same thing as saying that he has a vested right to a particular property in the compensation pool, for, after acquisition the legal title to the property vets in the Central Government and until that is divested no one can be said to have a vested right or title thereto. He has merely a general beneficial right which he shares in common with all the claimants." And again : "To accept that a right becomes complete and accrued as soon as one elects to assert that right would, in any view, be accepting a startling proposition. There is no principle or precedent which would support such a proposition." By parity of reasoning, therefore, this exposition of law is applicable in the case of admissions as stated above, and we are, therefore, of the confirmed view that the petitioner in this case by submitting his application for admission had not acquired a vested right.

14. If, therefore, no right had accrued to the petitioner by the met s submission of application form, the High Powered Appellate Committee cannot be held, while deciding the appeal against him to be performing a judicial function. There was no Us as such before the Appellate Committee and no civil rights as such were under adjudication. The essence of judicial act, when analysed turns out to be a decision given by a Judge applying a law to a set of facts. Both the Judges and the decisions are equally important. On the other hard a quasi judicial act lacks one of the essential elements of a genuine judicial act. The reason of the difference lies in the character of the person giving the decision. In the case of established judiciary there is a guarantee (backed by the full weight of the Constitution) of the impartiality and judiciousness of the decision. It is misleading to call a decision made by an administrator, pro moted and dismissed at the pleasure of the Executive, a judicial act. It is no a judicial act as it lacks one of the important elements of a judicial ac it is not made by a Judge. But since many administrative decisions involve the application of law to facts, the name quasi-judicial is to be given to such acts of such administrative tribunals. In Latin 'quasi' means `as if'. In quasi judicial act the person rendering the decision has changed and instead of a Judge the administrative officer is replaced. It is. therefore, thought that so far as the term quasi judicial is concerned i would be more accurate to apply to the `law decision' of an administrator and to that alone. We have searched in vain for any indication and none, in fact was intended to even remotely suggest that the Appellate Committee had a duty to follow a procedure which incorporated the fundamentals of procedure usually followed by the Judges in giving law decision. In the English Constitutional Law, it was, therefore, hold that a decision affecting the legal rights of the subject is a condition for interference by Courts in the Constitutional Jurisdiction-

15. In Tariq Transport Company v. Saragodha-Bhera Bus Service (P L D 1958 S C (Pak) 437) which is a celebrated decision! on the distinction between quasi judicial and administrative acts, the essential characteristics of quasi-judicial tribunals were laid down in the following observations, at page 455 "A tribunal acts judicially in the full sense of the term if". (1) it has to determine a dispute ; (2) the dispute relates to a right or liability which, whatever its immediate aspect, is ultimately referable to some right or liability, recognised by the Constitution or statute or by custom or equity which by the domestic law is declared to be the rule of decision ; (3) since every right of liability depends upon facts, the tribunal is under an obligation to discover the relevant facts ; (4) the ascertainment of the facts is in the presence of the parties either of whom is entitled to produce evidence in support of its respective case and to question the truth of the evidence produced by his opponent : and (5) after an investigation of the facts and hearing legal arguments the tribunal renders a judgment which so far the tribunal is concerned terminates the dispute. In the case of an administrative tribunal, however, the emphasis is on policy, expediency and discretion to enable it to achieve the object with which it was set up. It, the case of such a tribunal the approach in determining the relevant facts is therefore often subjective and not objective there being generally no Us before it in which the parties are arrayed against each other for the enforcement of a private right or liability and who for that purpose are entitled to produce evidence and adduce legal argument." This decision was extensively quoted and the principles postulated therein, were reaffirmed in a later decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Farid Sons Ltd. and others v. Government of Pakistan and another (P L D 1961 S C 537). This was; a case where the appellant had sought a writ to call in question the orders of the Chief Controller by which the Import Registration Certificates of the two Companies and the Provisional Export Registration Certificate of Messrs Farid Sons Ltd. were suspended. At page 550, S. A. Rehman, J. ~as he then was) observed "As was laid down ivy this Court in Tariq Transport Company v. Sargodha-Bhera Bus Service, "the true question in the case of judicial or administrative tribunals always is whether the act which is complained of is a judicial act and not whether the procedure adopted by the tribunal is judicial or quasi judicial or whether the dominant or general aspect of the tribunal is that of a judicial, quasi-judicial or administrative body. A tribunal is not always furnished with the trappings of a Court, nor will such trappings make its action judicial. The character of the action taken in a given case and the nature of the right on which it operates must determine whether that action is judicial, ministerial or legislative or whether it is simply the act of a public agent". For the purposes of certiorari, one test laid down in that case for holding that the order of public functionary would be subject to judicial review was whether that functionary had acted in the exercise of a statutory authority and was under an obligation to find the facts in a judicial or a specially prescribed manner." In the same case at page 542 of the report, Cornelius, C. J. (as he then was), while analysing the distinction between the case under consideration and Tariq Transport Company's case observed as follows : "The Tariq Transport Company's case was one where the need before the Road Authority was to make proper provisions for public transport upon a certain route, conformably to the public interest and to the other general conditions a g., the intensity of traffic which the road surface could bear, the need or otherwise for restraining competition upon the road and so forth. Although individual rights might have been advanced or injured by the eventual decision of the Authority favouring some of the applicants and not the others, vet the main duty upon the Authority was not the ascer tainment of any individual rights, or the satisfaction of any individual claims, but the fulfilment of a large public purpose. That is not a judicial function in the ordinary sense and can rightly be described as an administrative act taken after evaluation of all interests, public and private, that were involved, with the object of adopting the action to future requirements and eventualities, as estimated by the executive authorities." Further the learned Judge at page 542 observed as under : "Protection of an Individual's rights in person and property is a matter belonging peculiarly to the jurisdiction of Judges. Secondly it is a characteristic of a normal judicial proceedings that it operates ex post facto. The incident or the action which comes under judicial enquiry must ordinarily be one which has been completed in the past so that its outlines and its content are capable of exact ascertainment on the basis of evidence, and a judgment can be pronounced thereon in the light of the relevant law".

16. The principles deducible from the above decisions so far as the essential elements of a judicial or quasi judicial function yield at least two essential conditions, namely that a right or liability is under adjudication upon an ex post facto determination and that the functionary rendering the decision was acting in the exercise of statutory authority. Whereas characterissic of a purely administrative function is that the decision is arrived at in the light of policy laid down in the interest of public good at large. Applying these principles and guidelines to the instant case we find that the two committees responsible for selection of candidates were not performing their functions under the authority of any Statute but were constituted under an administrative order passed by the Government for carrying out the policy laid down for the purposes o granting admissions to the college. it is significant to note that the established practice is that the prospectus and the Admission Policy is issued by the Government for each successive academic session which is indicative of its character that it is not intended to safeguard the individual interests or rights of the citizens but is guided by the over all public interests of the Province in the field of medical facilities and public health. At page 6 paragraph I-A of the prospectus of the Bolan Medical College, Quetta for the academic session 1976-i7 it is laid down as under : "During the academic year 1976-77. there would be 120 seats in total in the first year M. B., B S. Class in the Bolan Medical College, Quetta. These seats shall be allocated as per policy decision of the Govern. merit of Baluchistan." As already stated the petitioners in the two petitions did not have a right to admission in the College. Also the High Powered Committee in the process of arriving at a decision whether to grant or refuse admissions to the petitioners was not required to investigate any incident or action completed in the past for the purposes of arriving at the true conclusion. For these reasons we are of the opinion that the High Powered Committee was not performing a judicial or quasi-judicial function but was acting in a purely administrative capacity.

17. In the view that we have taken, therefore, we have no hesitation in holding that the dictum laid down by their Lordships of the Supreme Court that judicial orders must be speaking orders containing the reasons in Support of the decisions given therein, cannot be extended to purely administrative orders. This requirement is the peculiarity of the orders passed by judicial or quasi judicial tribunals. In the day today administrative business of the functionaries of State a host of orders are passed and if each functionary is required to conform to the requirement of assigning reasons for orders that he may pass, it will lead to irrational land inconvenient results.

18. This suffices to dispose of this petition but we might say that there was cogent documentary evidence as required by the Rules contained in the prospectus in support of the various selected candidates regarding the fact of their permanent residence in District Kachhi. In any case, it is not for this Court to sit in judgment like an Appellate Court against the findings of fact arrived at by the High Powered Committee.

19. Turning now to Constitutional Petition No. 36/1976, this petition has been filed by Munawar Lal petitioner against the self same respondents except Muhammad Fazal and on the identical grounds as urged in the first mentioned Constitutional Petition. The petitioner in this case was also an applicant for a seat reserved for District Kachhi but in the merit list he could not compete with the first four respondents and, therefore, he was not selected. ' It is needless to consider the grounds urged in this petition as they have been considered for the decision of the aforementioned petition. No other contentions were raised by Mr. Khalid Malik, learned counsel for the petitioner in this case who stated that his contentions are the same as submitted in support of the previous petition. He, however, sought to urge, placing reliance on a case reported in P L D 1976 Lah. 622 that orders of executive authorities are open to judicial review. Therefore the counsel urged, this Court was competent to examine the legality of the impugned order of the High Powered Committee selecting the first three respondents. So far as the proposition of law enunciated in the cited case there can be no cavil, as under Article 199 of the Constitution this Court is vested with the jurisdiction to judicially review orders of executive authorities and strike them down if they are without lawful authority. However, we are quite unable to see how the cited judgment advances the case of the petitioner. That case related to an order of preventive detention and accordingly the Court was competent to examine the legality of the manner in which the order of detention was passed. We might with advantage here refer to a recent pronouncement of their Lordships of the Supreme Court on the scope of jurisdiction of the High Court under Article 98 of the 1962 Constitution of Pakistan which was the same as Article 199 of the present Constitution in Muhammad Hussain Munir v. Sikandar and an others (PLD1974SC139) wherein it was observed : "It was not controverted that the matter before the High Court fell to deal with under paragraph (ii) of subclause (a) of clause (1), Article 98 of the 1962 Constitution. That being so, the High Court could have set aside the order, if it had reached the conclusion that the revisional order of the Board of Revenue was "without lawful authority and of no legal effect." These are expressions of art and refer to jurisdictional defects as distinguished from a more erroneous decision whether on a question of fact or even of law. It is well-settled that where a Court or a tribunal has jurisdiction and it determines that question, it cannot be said that it acted illegally or with material irregularity merely because it came to an erroneous decision on a question of fact or even of law." It is wholly wrong to consider that the constitutional provision was designed to empower the High Court to interfere with the decision of a Court or tribunal of inferior jurisdiction, merely because in its opinion the decision is wrong. In that case, it would make the High Court's jurisdiction indistinguishable from that exerciseable in a full-fledged appeal, which plainly is not the intention of the Constitution-makers, when there is jurisdiction to decide a particular matter then there is jurisdiction to decide it rightly or wrongly and the fact that the decision is incorrect does not render the decision without jurisdiction."

20. In the light of the aforesaid authoritative exposition as to the scope of jurisdiction of this Court, we find no warrant in the case of the these petitions to interfere with the impugned orders in the Extraordinary jurisdiction of this Court. The petitioners in the two petitions have sought to challenge the admissions granted to the first three respondents in an attempt to exclude them from the list of selected candidates as marks secured by them were higher than those of the petitioner, so that the position of the petitioners is improved and they move upwards in order of merit among the first ten positions. It is, therefore, unnecessary to consider the contentions of the petitioners in Constitutional Petition No. 35 of 1976 against respondents Nos. 5 and 6 and in Constitutional Petition No. 36 of 1976 against respondent No. 5, who were placed on the waiting list above the petitioner. We might, however, in passing observe that there was evidence available on the record of High Powered Committee that these two respondents were also residents of District Kachhi.

21. For the aforesaid reasons, these two Constitutional Petitions fail and are accordingly dismissed. In the circumstances of the case, we pass no orders as to costs. S. A. H. Petition dismissed.