Misconduct allegations: Special SC bench formed to hear LHC judge’s case

ISLAMABAD: Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Anwar Zaheer Jamali formed on Saturday a special bench to hear the plea of a serving Lahore High Court (LHC) judge over a show-cause notice against an alleged misconduct.

The three-judge bench of the apex court, headed by Justice Amir Hani Muslim and comprising Justice Dost Muhammad Khan and Justice Faisal Arab, will hear the constitutional petition on Monday (tomorrow).

The petition was filed by LHC Justice Sayyed Mazahar Ali Akbar Naqvi against the issuance of show-cause by the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) on April 19. The notice was based on the sub-para (1) of para 9 of the SJC’s Procedure of Enquiry 2005.

Later, Justice Naqvi filed a petition under Article 184 (3) of the Constitution against the show-cause notice. However, the SC registrar returned the petition after raising four objections. The court rejected the registrar office’s objections on May 11 and admitted the petition for regular hearing. The case was listed for hearing after five months.

Raza Kazim, counsel for the petitioner, told The Express Tribune that he had filed a plea for the constitution of a larger bench to oversee the case, but the chief justice did not form the same.

The counsel said: “I will again request the bench to refer the matter before a larger bench as cases of similar nature such as the one filed by former chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry was heard by a larger bench.” However, he maintained that if the request is accepted, judges who are members of the SJC should not be allowed to sit on the larger bench.

He further states that the Supreme Judicial Council’s procedure of enquiry 2005 has neither constitutional authority nor delegated authority and the existing procedure is only in the nature of administrative guidelines.

The SJC was reactivated by incumbent Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali and a number of cases against superior court judges were shortlisted.

It is learnt that 260 complaints were registered since 2005.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 13^th, 2016.