KARACHI, March 24: Justice Rana Bhagwandas — the new acting chief justice and chairman of the Supreme Judicial Council — would not rule out the possibility of an open inquiry into the pending reference against Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, saying the matter was for the council to decide.

He would proceed with the reference ‘without fear or favour or affection or ill will’, he said while briefly addressing the media after taking oath at the Supreme Court registry here on Saturday morning.

The nation, he said, should have complete faith in the SJC’s ability to conduct its proceedings fairly and impartially. He could not say anything about the presidential reference till he had seen Justice Iftikhar’s rejoinder. Every decision would be taken within the constitutional and legal framework and in the larger interest of the people. The SJC was not alien to the Constitution, he said replying to questions.

All questions relating to the SJC proceedings, he emphasised, would be settled in accordance with the law and rules and it should be allowed to discharge its constitutional obligation without interference or pressure from any quarter. The independence and dignity of the judiciary would be fully protected, the ACJ said. “The judiciary would not disappoint the nation,” he added.

Justice Bhagwandas was earlier sworn in by the outgoing ACJ, Justice Javed Iqbal. The simple ceremony was attended by former chief justices Saeeduzzaman Siddiqui and Nazim Hussain Siddiqui, Supreme Court judges Faqir Mohammad Khokhar, Saiyed Saeed Ashhad, Hamid Ali Mirza and Ghulam Rabbani, Federal Shariat Court Chief Justice Haziqul Khairi, Chief Justice Sabihuddin Ahmad and judges of the Sindh High Court, Justice (retired) Saleem Akhtar, Justice (retired) Majida Rizvi, Justice (retired) Haider Ali Pirzada, former Supreme Court Bar Association president Abdul Haleem Pirzada, former SHCBA vice-president Dr Shamim Rana, former Sindh High Court Bar Association president M. Ilyas Khan, Deputy Attorney-General Akhter Ali Mahmud, Advocate-General Anwar Mansoor Khan, several law and judicial officers and leading lawyers.

Conspicuous by their absence were incumbent office-bearers of bar councils and associations. Supreme Court Bar Association President Munir A. Malik had announced last evening that bar representatives would not participate in the ACJ’s oath-taking.

Talking to reporters, Justice Javed Iqbal said he had taken over as the ACJ because of the absence of Justice Bhagwandas and to fill a constitutional void. The Constitution did not contemplate a vacancy in the highest judicial office for a moment. The Supreme Judicial Council had no option but to proceed once a reference had been made by the president. “Nobody is above the law and nobody could be a judge in his own cause”, he said. The ‘in-camera’ proceedings, he added, were mandated by Rule 13 of the SJC Procedure of Inquiry formulated in September 2005 and notified in November 2005. The purpose was to safeguard the dignity of the judiciary and ensure that proceedings against a superior court judge were not scandalised, the outgoing ACJ, who is a member of the SJC, said.

SHC Chief Justice Sabihuddin Ahmad, another SJC member, said he had made no formal request for his dissociation from the council’s proceedings but had only informed it that his lawyer son was a member of Munir Malik’s law firm. It was for the SJC to take a decision on the information placed by him before it.