The constitutional bench of the Supreme Court published on Monday opinions to the acting chief judge of the High Court of Islamabad (IHC) and two other judges, because it took pleadings contesting their recent transfer to the CI and the related modifications in the list of anerties of the Court.
A bench of five members, led by judge Muhammad Ali Mazhar and including the Judge Naeem Akhtar Afghan, Shahid Bilal Hassan, Salahuddin Panhwar and Shakeel Ahmed, have heard several petitions filed by five IHC and others.
The Ministry of Law, on February 1, published a notification for the transfer of judge Sardar Muhammad Sarfraz Dogar, judge Khadim Hussain Soomro and judge Muhammad Asif – respectively of the High Court of Lahore, the High Court of Sindh and the High Court of Balutchistan at the IHC.
After this transfer, the IHC has published a new seniority list, classifying Judge Dogar as a senior judge. Five IHC judges – judge Mohin Akhtar Kayani, Judge Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri, judge Sardar Ejaz Ishaq Khan, judge Babar Sattar and judge Saman Rafat Imtiaz – then filed representations against Dogar Judge.
However, the IHC chief judge, Aamer Farooq, rejected these representations. After the elevation of Judge Farooq at the Supreme Court, judge Dogar was also raised as an acting chief of the IHC.
The judges of the IHC, the founder of the PTI, Imran Khan, four associations of different bars and an order of Raja Muscat Riaz Khan have challenged the ordinance of judge Aamer Farooq at the Supreme Court.
During the hearing today, the attorney general of Pakistan Mansoor Usman Awan represented the government. The other legal representatives included Idrees Ashraf (on behalf of the former Prime Minister Imran Khan and Raja Muqsit), the former attorney general Munnir A. Malik and the lawyer Salahuddin Ahmed, representing the judges of the IHC.
The Superior Court issued opinions to the three transferred judges – Justice Dogar, judge Soomro and the Asif judge – as well as to the Attorney General. However, the bench rejected the petitioners’ requests to prevent the transferred judges from continuing its judicial functions.
The hearing was postponed until April 17.
The pleadings
Petitions seek to declare the transfer of judges to the IHC as unconstitutional and to request that the judges transferred to the IHC be prevented from carrying out legal work until a final decision is taken on constitutional petitions.
They also argue that the transferred judges did not take an oath as the JUDGE of the IHC, adding that once the transferred judges have taken oath as the IHC judges, their seniority should be determined from the date on which the oath was administered to them.
