LAHORE, Nov 30: Five of the eight Lahore High Court judges are scheduled to take oath of the office on Thursday (today) after they were confirmed by the president a day earlier. Chief Justice Iftikhar Husain Chaudhry will administer the oath to justices Sheikh Javaid Sarfraz, Muhammad Jahangir Arshad, Fazle Miran Chauhan, Sheikh Azmat Saeed and Umar Ata Bandial at a ceremony to be held in the Judges Lounge, LHC.

The president allowed a one-year extension as additional judges to justices Muhammad Nawaz Bhatti, Syed Shabbar Raza Razvi and Hamid Ali Shah whose confirmation was declined. The president appointed the eight additional judges for a year on Nov 30 last year and they were administered oath on Dec 1.

Still the number of judges’ vacancies in the high court remains at 15 as 35 judges have been working at the principal seat in Lahore and benches at Rawalpindi, Multan and Bahawalpur as against a sanctioned strength of 50. Vacancies have not been filled since Nov 2004 although, half-baked news of certain lists being sent to the Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) kept on circulating for one year without outcome.

The LHC chief justice is believed to be giving high priority for the strengthening of the criminal justice because fewer judges have been dealing with this part of judicial dispensation. For this, he is said to have recommended the names of a few district and sessions judges.

However, the CJP is understood to have felt that the list does not include the names in order of seniority. He is said to have called for the detail of the DSJs whose names have been recommended and those senior to them.

Meanwhile, the LHC administration has not inducted judges from civil servants, more precisely the District Management Group, who are qualified to be elevated to the bench for more than two decades. The civil servants’ induction is provided by article 193(2)(b) and (c) on the condition that they have 10 years of service with a three-year experience of working as a district judge. Sub-article (c) says that civil servants, who held judicial office, are also eligible to be appointed as high court judges.

It was from civil services that judges like A.R Cornelius, Muhammad Rustam Kiyani, Shafiur Rehman, Sheikh Anwarul Haq, K.M. A Samdani, M.S.H Qureshi and Saad Saood Jan were elevated first to the high court and then some of them rose as high as to become chief justices. The last of the induction to the bench was made in 1982-83. — Correspondent