CJ’s authority: Registrar summoned on LHC employee’s plea

LHC Chief Justice ordered the award of two advance increments to his private secretaries.

LAHORE:

A division bench of the Lahore High Court on Thursday issued notice to the court’s registrar on a petition from a court employee seeking the payment of allowances authorised by a former chief justice.

Advocates Sarfaraz Cheema and Saiful Malook, representing LHC officer Johnson Bernard, submitted before Justice Nasir Saeed Sheikh that then LHC Chief Justice Sheikh Riaz had ordered the award of two advance increments to his private secretaries, including the petitioner, in 1997.

But after Justice Riaz was elevated to the Supreme Court, the LHC Administrative Committee rejected his order. The petitioner contended that the committee did not have the authority to review the chief justice’s orders. The bench issued notice to the LHC registrar for the next hearing, which will be held after the summer vacations.



Published in The Express Tribune, June 17th, 2011.