Complaint filed at SJC seeks ouster of CJ Bandial, others

A complaint against four Supreme Court (SC) judges including Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Umar Ata Bandial was filed on Monday at the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) seeking their removal from office.

In addition to the CJP, Justice Munib Akhtar, Justice Ijazul Ahsan and Justice Mazhar Ali Naqvi have been named in the complaint.

The complainant, Advocate Sardar Salman Ahmad Dogar, maintained that all four judges were guilty of misconduct and “consistently acted in violation of Article 209 of the constitution”.

“The respected CJ Bandial has engaged in judicial and administrative misconduct, as a head of the bench hearing a provincial election case, and as Chairperson of the SJC by refusing to probe allegations against the respected Justice Naqvi, and also by announcing in open court that he was giving a ‘silent message’, by including justice Naqvi on the bench with him, instead of initiating proceedings against the judge,” the application stated.

Advocate Dogar then went on to detail the allegations against Justice Naqvi referring to the series of controversial audio leaks involving former Punjab chief minister (CM) and new PTI member Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, the judge himself and his principal secretary as well as the audio clips relating to the case of CCPO Lahore.

Notably, the complaint pointed out that the latter case was pending before Justice Naqvi and Justice Ahsan when “in the same case, which being a service matter, both the said Justice started proceeding with regards to the elections to the Punjab Assembly” and later “referred the matters to the CJP for invocation of suo motu notice”.

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“Surprisingly,” the application stated, “CJ Bandial did end up taking a suo motu notice on the issue” which the complainant believed “appears to be improper connivance of the two justices with Elahi and his aides”.

Advocate Dogar also highlighted “a video footage that went viral on Twitter and other social media forums in which Mr Muhammad Khan Bhatti, former principal secretary to the then CM Elahi and an accused facing serious allegations of corruption is found to be making serious allegations of judicial misconduct and partiality of these three judges in cases involving PTI”.

In the said video, Bhatti has alleged that Justice Naqvi was illegally managing Justice Akhtar and Justice Ahsan and implied that they in turn have been controlling CJ Bandial and fixing benches and getting favourable decisions, particularly, in favour of one political party,” the complainant stated.

“As a consequence of these video and audio leaks and corresponding developments,” the application furthered, “the judicial and administrative decisions of the four judges relating to the contents of the leaks have cast serious doubts on their integrity.

“This has also raised serious concerns about their judicial propriety and impartiality”.

“In pursuit of the foregoing, Advocate Mian Dawood had filed a reference against Justice Naqvi on February 23 before the SJC on allegations of misconduct. The inquiry in this regard has still not been taken up by the council.

“CJ Bandial, as the Chairperson of the SJC is under a duty to proceed against the references filed against Justice Naqvi. However, on March 31, the CJ refused to proceed on the reference and instead pre-judged the references, declared Justice Naqvi to be innocent, and impliedly threatened to proceed against the complainants.

“All this was done without conducting any inquiry upon the matter by the SJC as mandated by the constitution.”

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The reference maintained that the CJ’s “impartiality” was “extremely questionable” rendering him not only unfit to preside over proceedings against Justice Naqvi but also cases involving the PTI.

“It becomes glaringly obvious in cases of political import involving the PTI or any of its representatives.

“In the recent short order dated April 4 passed by the three judges (in a case concerning the delay in elections in Punjab by the Election Commission of Pakistan) three judges, namely CJ Bandial, Justice Akhtar and Justice Ahsan has in essence for all practical purposes overturned an earlier seven-member bench’s decision”.

Furthermore, the reference sought an inquiry into the CJ’s “refusal to accept the earlier decision of a larger bench” maintaining that the “4-3 majority of the court refused to adjudicate provincial election matters in court’s original jurisdiction” i.e. suo motu notice.

“Following this, CJ Bandial should have shown judicial restraint, but he has dismissed the majority decision of his brother judges and again invoked the jurisdiction of the court under Article 184(3) to decide the issue afresh.

Against a larger bench’s decision, the CJ improperly constituted a 3-member bench from the ‘block of four’ (namely CJ Bandial, Justice Akhtar and Justice Ahsan), the same justices who were mentioned in the leaked audio and videos” which Dogar maintained decided the matter “in favour of the PTI in an unprecedented haste”.

The reference also accuses CJ Bandial of “abusing” his power in constituting benches, “arbitrary elevation of justices to the SC”, “non-fixation of petitions challenging the appointments” and even “not letting inquiry be conducted” in the Justice Qazi Faez Isa case, allegedly in cooperation with the other three judges named in the reference.

Advocate Dogar sought the intervention of the SJC and requested that the council report to the president that “it is of the opinion that the four judges be removed from office” under Article 209(6) of the constitution.