Justice Jahangiri to challenge SHC over 'disputed' law degree proceedings

Justice Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri has requested leave to petition against the Sindh High Court order for not allowing him to become a party in a case regarding the cancellation of his degree.

His petitions will raise the concern that the SHC ruled on maintainability without first addressing more fundamental concerns like whether the bench had jurisdiction, and giving Justice Jahangiri a chance to engage counsel.

“Any decision on the question of maintainability in the absence of formally impleading the main aggrieved party, i.e., Petitioner, would be a grave violation of the principle of natural justice.”

On September 26, a two-judge bench declined to entertain the plea of Justice Jahangiri to become a party in proceedings on seven petitions, challenging the cancellation of his law degree.

The court had decided that it would first hear and decide the maintainability of the petitions before it. Justice Jahangiri had requested a right of hearing, saying he was the aggrieved party and Karachi University (KU) had not issued him a notice before canceling his degree.

Senior lawyer Faisal Siddiqui questioned how the issue could be decided without first hearing the aggrieved person.

The University of Karachi had earlier declared Jahangiri’s academic record “fictitious,” after its Unfair Means Committee (UMC) concluded he had never been enrolled at Islamia Law College and engaged in malpractice during his LLB exams in the 1980s. The KU Syndicate endorsed the findings, which became the basis of a complaint now before the Supreme Judicial Council.

Justice Jahangiri’s challenges before the Sindh High Court were dismissed after his counsels staged a walkout, with the bench calling the conduct “highly unbecoming.” This left the KU cancellation intact at the provincial level.

Read: Top court overturns IHC ban on judge, underscores limits on interim orders

It may be recalled that on September 16, Islamabad High Court (IHC) Chief Justice Sardar Muhammad Sarfraz Dogar led the bench that restrained Jahangiri from judicial work. This was the first time in Pakistan’s history that a high court had stopped its own sitting judge from hearing cases — an order his counsel called a blow to judicial independence.

Earlier this week, the Supreme court (SC) suspended the Islamabad High Court's (IHC) ruling that restrained Justice Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri from judicial work over the alleged fake degree case. The SC ruled that “The settled law was ignored. The order did not meet the requirements of justice.”

Justice Jahangiri has termed the controversy “political victimisation,” linking it to his role in the March 2024 IHC judges’ letter about surveillance of judges and to his work as an election tribunal judge whose decisions had upset ruling party candidates.

He insists that cancelling a degree after 34 years is unprecedented worldwide and a direct attack on judicial independence.