Appeal against SJC: SC refuses to entertain serving judge’s plea

Says petition not maintainable due to bar of jurisdiction under Article 211

ISLAMABAD:

The top court has refused to entertain plea of a serving Lahore High Court’s (LHC) judge, who challenged the Supreme Judicial Council’s (SJC) proceedings for his alleged misconduct.

Last week, an LHC judge filed a constitutional petition in the Supreme Court under Article 184(3) of the Constitution against the issuance of a show-cause notice to him by the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC).

The show cause notice was issued to LHC judge on April 19 under sub-para (1) of para 9 of the Supreme Judicial Council’s procedure of enquiry 2015. The council had asked him to submit a reply to the show-cause notice within 14 days.



The petition was filed by senior advocate Raza Kazim, wherein it was requested that the SC declare April 19 notice as “unlawful, unconstitutional, without jurisdiction and contrary to public interest”.



However, the SC registrar on Tuesday returned the constitutional petition of high court’s judge by raising four objections. The copy of the registrar office objections is available with The Express Tribune.

The registrar office stated that the petition was not maintainable due to bar of jurisdiction under Article 211 of the Constitution, which says, “The proceedings before the council, its report to the president and the removal of a judge under clause (6) of Article 209 shall not be called in question in any court.”

The registrar said the petitioner was directly invoking the extraordinary jurisdiction of the Supreme Court under Article 184 (3) of the Constitution for the redressal of an individual grievance, “which is not permissible in terms of the judgment, reported as 1998 SCMR 793 titled as Zulfiqar Mehdi vs PIA etc.”



It further objected that a serving judge had not approached appropriate forum available to him under the law. “The certificate does not fulfill the requirements of a certificate as required under Rule 6 of Order XXV of the Supreme Court Rules 1980.”

However, the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) President Ali Zafar said the SC registrar had no authority to return that petition, adding that the maintainability of the petition should be decided by the judicial forum.

“There is a precedent, wherein the court had suspended the SJC proceedings in the case of former chief justice of Pakistan (CJP) Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry,” Zafar said, while talking to The Express Tribune,

Former CJP Chaudhry on April 18, 2007 filed a petition under Article 184 (3) of the Constitution before the apex court, challenging the move of the then president Pervez Musharraf to file a reference against him on misconduct and abuse of powers.

On July 20, 2007, a 13-judge Supreme Court bench headed by Justice Khalilur Rehman Ramday reinstated Justice Chaudhry to his position as chief justice of Pakistan.



The SJC is a body of judges empowered under Article 209 of the Constitution to hear cases of misconduct against top judges. A judge belonging to the superior judiciary can only be removed on the SJC’s recommendations. No superior court judge has been ousted by the council since the 1970s.

Sources revealed to The Express Tribune that the council on April 19 issued show cause notices to two LHC judges. However, one of them has approached the SC against the council’s proceedings. More than 200 complaints of misconduct have been registered in the SJC against superior court judges since 2005.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 4^th, 2016.