Pakistan Engineering Council Act (PEC), 1975

This 1975 act creates the Pakistan Engineering Council (PEC), the body that regulates the engineering profession in Pakistan, accredits engineering degrees and institutions, and maintains the official register of engineers. Section 2 sets out detailed definitions, including that a "professional engineer" is someone who holds an accredited engineering qualification, has five years of professional experience, and has passed the Council's engineering practice examination, while a "registered engineer" holds an accredited qualification and is registered but has not yet reached that professional-engineer stage (and cannot independently sign off designs).

Section 3 establishes the Council as a body corporate that can own property and sue or be sued, and Sections 4 to 7 set out its leadership (Chairman, Senior and Junior Vice-Chairmen) and how its annual and extraordinary general meetings work. Section 8 lists the Council's core functions, and Sections 10 to 15 govern accreditation: the Council accredits engineering qualifications from institutions inside Pakistan (Section 10) and recognises foreign qualifications (Section 11), can grant temporary licences (Section 12), and can withdraw accreditation from institutions that fail to meet standards (Section 15).

Sections 16 to 19 cover the Register of engineers: who can be registered, how names are removed, and how a person can appeal if their name is struck off. Sections 20 to 23 set out a disciplinary process — anyone can lodge a complaint against a professional engineer (Section 20), which can lead to a Tribunal of Inquiry (Section 21) with its own procedures and powers similar to a court's (Sections 22-23). Section 27 covers penalties and procedure for offences under the act, and Section 30 allows the Federal Government to set up a separate Commission of Inquiry — including a retired or sitting judge — if it believes the Council itself is not complying with the act, with power to recommend remedies the Council must adopt or face government intervention.

This act has been amended many times over the decades — the extract shows changes from 1983, 2002, 2009, and a substantial 2011 amendment that rewrote the definitions section and other parts, including validating actions the Council took between January 2008 and the 2009 amendment coming into force. Given this long history of amendments, anyone relying on specific definitions, procedures, or penalty amounts should check the current official text rather than assuming this extract reflects the law as it stands today.