What Mr. Raza Rabbani has said on the floor of the House about the stay granted by Supreme Court to devolution of Higher Education Commission would certainly have invited Contempt of Court proceedings had these been uttered outside the precincts of the House. What he failed to clarify was that if the Parliament commits a serious mistake then which authority is going to correct it. Everyone knows the way in which 18th Amendment was drafted, presented in the parliament and passed. It was drafted by a select Committee, the meetings of which were not always attended by all members. Then it was never debated in the parliament to an extent which such an important Constitutional Amendment deserved. Nor was it debated in public (by press and other media) to ensure that what parliament passed was actually the will of the people. It appears that all the political parties were in a hurry to get political gains from this legislature. They failed to comprehend the intricacies of many autonomous bodies attached to various ministries. HEC case is only a beginning. There are many other autonomous bodies attached to various ministries performing either important regulatory functions or research and development functions and their cases will emerge with passage of time. To name a few are Pakistan Medical and Dental Council, Pakistan Medical Research Council, Pakistan Agricultural Research Council, Pakistan Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, national Institute of Health etc. Devolution of Ministry of Health has already been delayed for this reason. We wonder what harm would have come if all autonomous bodies with important regulatory and research and development functions had been retained as such. The arguments being cited most commonly is that in USA and some developed countries all such functions are with federating units. But are we at par with USA at development, intellectual and economic level? Moreover it is not true totally. There are several important autonomous bodies even in USA at Federal level. In many developed countries of Europe and in almost all developing countries regulatory functions in education and health are enshrined in autonomous bodies like HEC and FDA and PM&DC. Mr. Raza Rabbani assured that a new commission will be formed to safeguard the Regulatory Functions of present HEC. We fail to understand what is the fun in breaking one Commission created primarily for the same function for which a Government desires to create a new Commission. The amount of independence which the present Ordinance provides to HEC is not expected at all by the present Government to be granted to proposed new Commission. MAJ GEN (R) MASOOD ANWAR, Rawalpindi, April 14.