Rules of procedure: Appointments of 21 judicial officers deemed illegal

Petitions filed at PHC to revoke appointments

 A petition has been filed at the Peshawar High Court (PHC) requesting it to declare the appointment of 21 judicial officers in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa in 2003 in light of new judgment of the Supreme Court of Pakistan.

The petition was filed by district and sessions judge (DSJ), now director administration Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Judicial Academy Ihsanullah Khan Mehsud, and senior lawyer Naveed Maqsood. It named the provincial government and 21 judicial officers as respondents.



In the petition, Mehsud said he was appointed as a civil judge on July 29, 1998 and then promoted to the post of senior civil judge on August 11, 2003. He was later promoted as additional district and sessions judge on November 16, 2006.

Not with the high court

His petition states: Under Rule 4 of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Judicial Services Rules 2001, the matter of appointment remains a statutory responsibility and this legal position was recently affirmed by Supreme Court in a judgment passed on May 11, 2015. After this clarification, the petition stated that according to the Supreme Court’s judgment, the appointment of district judiciary members is a statutory responsibility in terms of Rule 16 (ii) of High Court Rules and Orders. It is regulated by sections 5 and 8 of K-P Civil Servants Act 1973 and rules 5 and 10 of NWFP (now K-P) Judicial Service Rules 2001.

“When statutory, it is to be exercised by the Administration Committee and the chief justice cannot do anything on his own in the scheme of the Rules of 2001 and High Court Rules and Orders,” said Mehsud’s petition. “Therefore, any decision taken by the Administration Committee shall be binding on the chief justice.”

The petition added that two notifications issued on March 27, 2003 and October 8, 2003 regarding the appointments of the respondents revealed these were issued on the orders of the PHC chief justice alone. The petition deemed this incorrect since under Rule 2 (i) of the KP Judicial Services Rules 2001, in conjunction with High Court Rules and Orders, the process of selection/recommendation of the respondent judges was to be carried by a judicial selection board. The board has to comprise of the administration committee itself or by such number of judges of the high court as may be nominated by the committee and not by the chief justice.

The court was requested to revoke the appointments and to declare them illegal, void abinitio and corrum non-judice.

Appointments in question

The judges whose appointments were challenged include: district and sessions judge Batagram Rajab Ali Khan, Kohistan DSJ Muhammad Iqbal Khan, PHC Bannu Bench additional registrar Nasrullah Khan Grandeur, PHC National Judicial Policy Implementation Cell in charge Ikhtiar Khan, Shangla DSJ Naveed Ahmad Khan, Swat Anti-terrorist court (ATC) judge Madad Khan, Chitral DSJ Ahmad Sultan Tareen, PHC  draftsman Gohar Rehman, Bannu DSJ Muhammad Hussain, Bannu ATC judge Muhammadul Hassan, Lower Dir DSJ Muhammad Zubair Khan, Mardan DSJ Sajjad Khan, Buner DSJ Muzzamil Shah Khattak, Karak DSJ Liaqat Ali Khan, Upper Dir DSJ Rafiullah, Mansehra DSJ Salahuddin, Swat ATC judge Muhammad Amin, Hangu DSJ Jamaluddin, Peshawar banking court judge Muhammad Hamid Mughal and PHC DSJ/OSD Shafiq Ahmad.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 1^st, 2015.