ISLAMABAD: The Parliamentary Committee on Appointment of Judges have expressed serious concern over low elevation rate of judges to the Supreme Court from smaller provinces.
The committee called for giving the smaller provinces their due share in the appointments of judges to the apex court in order to remove a sense of deprivation among them.
A member of the committee told The Express Tribune that it has written a letter to the Judicial Commission of Pakistan (JCP) Chairman, Chief Justice of Pakistan Asif Saeed Khosa.
The committee, in its letter through JCP Secretary Arbab Arif, notes that Pakistan is a federation which consists of four provinces and the Islamabad Capital Territory. All the said federating units have high courts.
The Supreme Court of Pakistan has always had judges from every province which is reflection of [a] united federation. At this point of time, we observe that Punjab has got a good quota, Sindh appears to be over-represented but Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and, in particular, Balochistan is under-represented in the Supreme Court of Pakistan.
There is also no judge from the Islamabad Capital Territory in the august court.
The committee notes that to ensure the federal complexion, judges should be appointed to the Supreme Court of Pakistan from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, or the ICT.
"This is more so in reference to Balochistan, … [with] only one judge in the Supreme Court of Pakistan... Under these circumstances, for the benefit of the federation and keeping a balance among the federating units, we considers that it would be appreciated that judges of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa or Balochistan or the Islamabad Capital Territory be taken up as judges of the Supreme Court to avoid any feeling of deprivation by smaller provinces.
“We have observed that there has been only one judge from Balochistan for the last five years and over that period two chief justices of the province have been overlooked without any reason and subsequently retired which tends to lead to a perception that the province, already deprived, is not being given its due importance in the Supreme Court,” says the letter.
The committee asked the JCP secretary to place the point of view/submission before the chief justice of Pakistan/commission for consideration.
Currently, seven Supreme Court judges are from Punjab, six from Sindh and two judges belong to Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Interestingly, only one Supreme Court judge, Qazi Faez Isa, hails from Balochistan.
Justice Isa, who has been working as Supreme Court judge since 2014, is facing a presidential reference.
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