ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court is set to decide the fate of a number of ‘irregular appointments’ in the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Monday.

According to the supplementary cause list issued by the Registrar’s Office, an apex court’s bench consisting of Justice Amir Hani Muslim, Justice Mushir Alam and Justice Dost Mohammad Khan will announce the long-awaited judgment on a petition filed by senior lawyer Chaudhry Mohammad Akram, through Mohammad Arif Chaudhry, former vice chairman of the Punjab Bar Council.

The bench reserved its verdict on the petition on May 16, 2016. Lawyers’ bodies, including the Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) and Islamabad High Court Bar Association (IHCBA) have, on a number of occasions, passed resolutions urging the apex court to decide the petition and set a precedent for future appointments to high courts.

The petition was moved in Dec 2013 against a number of appointments made in the IHC. At least two of the appointees were close relatives of sitting judges. The appointments were made in phases between 2011 and 2012.

An internal audit report of IHC accounts termed these appointments ‘irregular’ since they were carried out without any competitive process or advertisement in the press.

Lawyers’ bodies, IHC officials anxiously await decision reserved on May 16

The bench will also be deciding an application filed by former IHC additional registrar Aijaz Ahmed, who was allegedly forced to retire for opposing these appointments. Arguing before the court, Mr Ahmed claimed that the independence of the judiciary did not render it above the law.

After the apex court reserved judgement, he wrote to Justice Muslim stating that while the case was still pending adjudication before the IHC, the court’s administration had given a two-year extension to Assistant Registrar Usman Mir, who was brought in on deputation from the Allied Bank. Mir’s appointment is also under court scrutiny.

In his letter, Mr Ahmed alleged that the administration had also re-hired Registrar Atiqur Rehman, who was one of those responsible of the alleged ‘irregular inductions’.

During the hearing of the main petition, Justice Hani observed that the apex court cannot say that an order made by a high court or SC chief justice regarding appointments without advertising the same or following proper procedure was not amenable to changes, but if a similar exercise was carried out by other departments, it would be illegal and unconstitutional.

In his petition, Chaudhry Arif had named 74 individuals as respondents and requested the apex court to declare their appointments illegal. The petitioner said such appointments deprived the citizens of their right to participate in the selection process and thus violated a number of SC judgments.

Justice Muslim has authored a number of landmark judgments on service structure and the excessive use of discretionary powers in service-related matters, including one where he declared the absorption of deputationists into different government departments void.

As a result, 44 senior officers from the Capital Development Authority (CDA) were reverted to their parent departments within a single day. His latest judgment curtailing the discretionary powers of provincial chief ministers to appoint 12.5pc of assistant commissioners from among secretarial staff is also a landmark ruling.

An apex court verdict in this case is not only awaited by the lawyers’ community, but also by IHC officials and junior staff. In case the decision is against these ‘irregular appointments’, several senior officers may lose their jobs. Others who are lower down in the hierarchy believe that such a verdict may present opportunities for their promotion.

The IHC administration had explained to the apex court that it only made 19 appointments in relaxation of rules. Justifying the reasons for filling these 19 posts, the high court registrar explained that initially, the number of judges at the IHC was three, but owing to the pendency of cases, their number was increased to five.

“All the appointments made by the IHC chief justice were within the parameters defined by high court rules,” the IHC reply emphasised.

Published in Dawn, September 24th, 2016