Supreme Court's CB to take up judges transfer case on 14th

PAKISTAN:

A constitutional bench (CB) of the apex court is going to take up on April 14 a slew of petitions filed against "illegal" transfer of three judges from various high courts to the Islamabad High Court (IHC) and the revision of the IHC judge's seniority list in the wake of the transfer.

The Ministry of Law on February 1 issued a notification for the transfer of Justice Sardar Muhammad Sarfraz Dogar, Justice Khadim Hussain Soomro and Justice Muhammad Asif—respectively from the Lahore High Court, the Sindh High Court and the Balochistan High Court—to the IHC.

Following this transfer, the IHC issued a new seniority list, ranking Justice Dogar as the senior puisne judge. Five IHC judges—Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani, Justice Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri, Justice Sardar Ejaz Ishaq Khan, Justice Babar Sattar and Justice Saman Rafat Imtiaz—later filed representations against Justice Dogar.

However, the then IHC chief justice, Aamer Farooq rejected these representations. After elevation of Justice Farooq to the Supreme Court, Justice Dogar was also elevated as the IHC acting chief justice.

The IHC judges, PTI founder Imran Khan, four different bar associations and a Raja Muscat Riaz Khan challenged Justice Aamer Farooq's order in the Supreme Court.

According to a cause list issued by the Supreme Court, a CB led by Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar and comprising Justice Naeem Akhtar Afghan, Justice Shahid Bilal Hassan, Justice Salahuddin Panhwar and Justice Shakeel Ahmad will hear the case.

The petitions seek to declare the transfer of judges to the IHC as unconstitutional and request that the judges transferred to the IHC be restrained from performing judicial work until a final decision is made on the constitutional petitions.

They also argue that the transferred judges did not take oath as IHC judges, adding that once the transferred judges take their oath as judges of the IHC, their seniority would need to be determined from the date on which the oath was administered to them.