In What Capacity?

When in the only Garden Party thrown by the Governor General Muhammad Ali Jinnah for the elite of Karachi a Parsi businessman Mahouta, whose house had been requisitioned by the Karachi administration for housing the Foreign Office there, requested the  Quaid that if he ordered Hashim Raza (Commissioner Karachi) he would immediately derequisition his house, the Quaid had retorted abruptly, “Order him? In what capacity can I order him?  If you feel so strong about it why don’t you go to the court”? 

Allah o Akbar!!  Quaid didn’t have the capacity even to order a piddling of a Commissioner!!  And here, the night Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani was elected ‘Leader of the House’ he had the ‘capacity’ to fly to Karachi in the Presidential Plane for the wedding of his son and return in the same next day to be sworn in as the PM of the country.  He was NOT the PM when he flew in the special plane but just the Leader of the House. May I ask “In what Capacity” he used the special plane for entirely a private function that evening, which incidentally, he could not do even after becoming  the PM? I would, therefore, request the CJP to take suo moto notice of it and order Gilani or/and General Musharraf who allowed the plane to be used, to reimburse the costs involved so that it serves as a deterrent to others following suite.  Unfortunately, it has become a norm for the rulers to do whatever they wish without any check.  They are getting quite used to using the public property as their own and are fond of misusing their authority and take huge entourages on Umeras and official and non-official tours abroad just on their whims but on the expense of the poor tax payer.  It is time they abided by the rules and knew of their ‘capacity’ and authorisation. The National Exchequer is a public property and they do NOT own it.

Col. Riaz Jafri (Retd)