Judicial commission endorses Justice Minallah as next IHC chief justice

ISLAMABAD: A judicial commission on Thursday recommended the name of Justice Athar Minallah as the next chief justice of the Islamabad High Court (IHC).

This was decided in a meeting of a Judicial Commission with Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar in the chair.

The commission considered various aspects and then decided to recommend Justice Minallah’s name to the relevant parliamentary committee for approval.

Justice Minallah is currently the senior judge of the IHC and next in line to take up the post after his superior, Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui, had been sacked last month.

He had been removed by President Arif Alvi on October 10 after the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) had opined that while delivering the speech before the District Bar Association in Rawalpindi on July 21, Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui, an IHC judge, displayed a conduct unbecoming of a high court judge.

Terming Siddiqui of guilty of misconduct, it stated that therefore, he was liable to be removed from his office under Article 209 (6) of the Constitution.

Then a day later, the SJC dismissed all complaints of ‘misconduct’ against IHC’s Chief Justice Anwar Khan Kasi.

A statement by the SJC said the decision was made by a bench chaired by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Mian Saqib Nisar. The council examined four complaints pending against Kasi.

“After detailed deliberations and discussion, the council came to a conclusion on the basis of material available on record [that] no case of misconduct was made out against the judge,” read a release of the meeting. Meanwhile, the IHC Bar Association has welcomed the decision and hoped that he would work for improving the court.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 2^nd, 2018.