Islamabad High Court's (IHC) Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani has observed that the court's acting chief justice, Sardar Muhammad Sarfraz Dogar, does not have the authority to withdraw a case from a bench through an administrative order.
"It is not possible to transfer a case from a single-member bench to a division bench. It is my principled stance that no case can be transferred in this manner," Justice Kayani said on Thursday while hearing a case.
A fresh controversy surfaced over bench reconstitution at the IHC, with a Justice Kayani-led larger bench, previously hearing quota-related cases, replaced by a new panel.
The former bench, also including Justice Babar Sattar and Justice Sardar Ejaz Ishaq Khan, had conducted a hearing of the case on March 6 and was scheduled to resume hearing on Thursday, April 10.
However, according to the IHC website, the case was listed for hearing before a three-member bench led by Acting Chief Justice Sarfraz Dogar and comprises Justice Khadim Hussain Soomro and Justice Inaam Amin Minhas.
The new bench was supposed to take up the case on Thursday.
However, its hearing was cancelled due to non-availability of judges.
During the hearing of another case, Justice Kayani expressed his reservation on the move. "Go and try to communicate this [to acting CJ]," the judge asked a lawyer, smilingly.
Earlier, Justice Sardar Ejaz Ishaq Khan was also hearing a contempt of court case against the superintendent of Adiala Jail for denying meetings
with PTI founding chairman Imran Khan.
During the hearing, Superintendent Ghafoor Anjum had requested that cases related to Imran Khan's meetings and contempt charges be clubbed together.
Acting CJ Dogar subsequently constituted a three-member larger bench and disposed of the cases with instructions.
However, Justice Ejaz Ishaq Khan initiated a separate suo motu contempt proceeding that remains ongoing.
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