Appointment case: IHC judges brought back

Apex court rules that Justices Siddiqui and Qureshi will be considered appointed since Nov 20.

ISLAMABAD:

Setting aside the concerns put forward in a presidential reference, the Supreme Court, releasing a previously reserved verdict on Friday, directed that notifications be issued for the reappointment of two justices of the Islamabad High Court (IHC).

According to the verdict, the appointments of Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui and Justice Noorul Haq Qureshi as judge and additional judge of the IHC, respectively, will be for six months. Both justices would be considered appointed since November 20, 2012 – the day their one year tenure expired and they stood officially retired.

The verdict on the presidential reference on the appointments of the IHC judges and a related case was reserved by a five member bench on December 14. President Asif Ali Zardari sought to clarify his role in the appointment of senior judges through 13 questions posed in a reference.

Justice Khilji Arif Hussain, who headed the five-member bench, authored a short, two-page judgment, in which the president’s concerns were briefly addressed. President Zardari held the notification on the appointment of the IHC judges on the grounds that Justice Anwar Khan Kasi, who participated in a meeting of the judicial commission for the appointment of judges on October 22, 2012, was not as senior as the justice he was replacing on the commission, Justice Riaz Ahmad.

It was stated that, “even if it is assumed” that the president’s concern that “one of the participants (of the judicial commission for the appointment of judges) out of ten was not qualified to attend the meeting of the Commission” is valid, the decision on the reappointments still stood.



The judgment It was pointed out that the commission’s decisions are based on a majority – therefore, even if one vote is disregarded, the decision still went through. It was recalled that the parliamentary committee also gave its consent on the decisions later.

“We (the bench) are of the view that even if it is assumed that one of the members, being a non-entity sat, voted and took part in the proceedings, culminating in the nomination, but it would [still] not vitiate the proceedings when the judicial commission, in view of Clause 8 of Article 175A of the Constitution, has nominated by [way of] majority of its membership,” read the judgment.

Other questions reportedly posed by the reference seem to have been ignored.

The ruling on the reappointments was issued over a constitutional petition filed by Advocate Nadeem Ahmed, who argued that all constitutional formalities, as laid down in Article 175A of the Constitution, had been completed for the extension in the judges’ terms.

The petition seeking the reappointments was upheld “for reasons to be recorded later.”

Published in The Express Tribune, December 22^nd, 2012.