The Supreme Court’s constitutional bench on Monday issued notices to the acting chief justice of the Islamabad High Court (IHC) and two other judges as it took up pleas challenging their recent transfer to the IHC and related changes in the court’s seniority list.
A five-member bench, headed by Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar and including Justices Naeem Akhtar Afghan, Shahid Bilal Hassan, Salahuddin Panhwar, and Shakeel Ahmed, heard multiple petitions filed by five sitting IHC judges and others.
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.
During the hearing today, Attorney General for Pakistan Mansoor Usman Awan represented the government. Other legal representatives included Idrees Ashraf (on behalf of former Prime Minister Imran Khan and Raja Muqsit), former Attorney General Munir A. Malik, and Barrister Salahuddin Ahmed, representing the IHC judges.
The top court issued notices to all three transferred judges—Justice Dogar, Justice Soomro, and Justice Asif—as well as to the Attorney General. However, the bench rejected the petitioners’ request to restrain the transferred judges from continuing their judicial duties.
The hearing was adjourned until April 17.
The pleas
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.
