Pakistan Council of Scientific and Industrial Research Act, 1973

This 1973 Act creates the Pakistan Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (PCSIR) as the country's main statutory body for scientific and technological research aimed at supporting industry. Section 3 establishes it as a body corporate headquartered in Islamabad, with the legal power to own property and to sue and be sued in its own name.

Section 4 sets out who sits on the 21-member Council: a Chairman appointed by the Federal Government, a Finance Member representing the Ministry of Finance, two full-time Science Members (at least one an engineer or technologist), four federal government officers, the Director of Industries from each province, three Institute Directors, and six representatives of private and public sector industry. Members generally serve three-year terms (Section 5) and can be removed by the Federal Government without needing to give a reason.

Section 6 lists PCSIR's core functions: setting up and managing technological research institutes for specific industries, coordinating and reviewing the work of these institutes and laboratories, and carrying out special scientific or technological surveys the Federal Government asks it to undertake. Day-to-day executive authority rests with a smaller Governing Body (Section 8), made up of the Chairman, the Finance Member and the two Science Members, while each individual research institute is separately run by its own Board of Management (Section 9) headed by that institute's Director.

Section 10 describes how PCSIR is funded -- government grants, donations, other income, and (per Section 22) the assets of the older, informally 'registered' Council (which had been set up under the Societies Registration Act, 1860) that this Act formally dissolves and absorbs, transferring its staff, property, debts and pending lawsuits into the new statutory Council. Section 16 provides that any invention or discovery made by PCSIR staff in the course of their work belongs to the Council, not the individual employee.

The Federal Government retains significant oversight: it can issue binding directives to PCSIR (Section 15), must approve its rules (Section 18), and the Council itself may make regulations with government sanction (Section 19). Winding up the Council requires a Federal Government order (Section 21). The extract shows this law has been amended since 1973 (for example, a 1984 amending ordinance is referenced), so current organisational details should be checked against PCSIR's present-day structure.