ISLAMABAD: The Lahore High Court (LHC) has dismissed a writ petition filed by Federal Board of Revenue’s former Member Operations Inland Revenue, against actions taken by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in a fraudulent tax refunds scam at Large Taxpayer Office Lahore. The verdict came after filing of consolidated writ petitions of the FBR, challenging FIA’s inquiry, notices, and raid conducted at the LTO, Lahore. While despite holding a powerful policymaking and supervisory position at FBR, LHC held that former Member Inland Revenue (Operations) was not an “aggrieved person” under Article 199 of the Constitution. The Court drew a sharp line between institutional interest and personal legal injury, observing that no notice was issued to him personally and no coercive action was taken against him. His petition, the Court noted, was purely representative and indistinguishable from an earlier FBR petition already declared an inter-departmental dispute, liable to be resolved internally under the Rules of Business, 1973. When contacted, Chairman LTBA Public Interest Litigation Committee, Waheed Shahzad Butt told Business Recorder that by dismissing the petition for want of locus standi, the LHC sent a blunt message that constitutional jurisdiction cannot be used to ventilate supervisory authority or institutional discomfort. Judicial review, the LHC made clear, is meant to redress real and personal legal injury, not bureaucratic displeasure or turf battles between state institutions. In dismissing his petition for want of locus standi, the LHC sent a nuanced but powerful message that constitutional jurisdiction cannot be invoked merely to assert supervisory authority or institutional displeasure. Judicial review, the court emphasized, is reserved for cases involving concrete infringement of personal legal rights, not abstract or administrative disagreements between state organs. Waheed added that while the dismissal of the said tax official petition may appear technical, it is jurisprudentially significant. It reinforces the principle that senior office alone does not confer standing, and that institutional disputes must ordinarily be resolved through constitutional and executive channels, not by individual office-holders invoking writ jurisdiction. The LHC has not only protected the sanctity of taxpayer confidentiality but has also clarified the constitutional limits of who may speak for an institution before the courts, making this decision a defining precedent for governance, accountability, and separation of powers in Pakistan: LTBA-PILC added. Copyright Business Recorder, 2026