President Asif Zardari hosts a farewell dinner in honor of the outgoing Chief Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar at Aiwan-e-Sadr. - APP photo.

ISLAMABAD Chief Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar retires on Saturday without the traditional full court reference because Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, the judge he had replaced in a controversial manner, has been restored with full honors.

Justice Dogar who became highly controversial for taking oath under the Provisional Constitution Order (PCO) soon after the proclamation of November 3, 2007 emergency rule by former President Pervez Musharraf in defiance of an order by a seven-member bench headed by Justice Iftikhar, spent his last day in the Supreme Court by meeting fellow judges and the entire staff of the apex court while paying a farewell call on with President Asif Ali Zardari. Afterwards Justice Dogar did not join the court on Friday and quietly left the court premises in his usual cavalcade.

The full court reference attended by all the judges of the court, senior lawyers and government officials is considered to be an honor. It is organized by the court usually on the eve of the retirement of a judge to honor the services he rendered during his judgeship.

`These are turbulent times besides there is a lot of acrimony among the judges,` said a senior lawyer on condition of anonymity while commenting why reference in honor of Justice Dogar was not held. However the lawyer recalled that our history was littered with occasions when many judges were retired without any reference. 

All during his 16-month tenure as the chief justice, Justice Dogar, who belongs to Sindh, never lived in the official residence reserved for the chief justice at the Judges Colony.

Soon after assuming the charge as the chief justice, Justice Dogar validated the Nov-3 emergency rule clamped by the former president on a petition by Tikka Mohammad Iqbal and latter reaffirmed the same on a subsequent review petition.

He again attracted criticism when while presiding over a five-member bench vacated an earlier order of the court of freezing two sections of the National Reconciliation Ordinance 2007 (NRO) thus allowing beneficiaries to enjoy the fruits of the ordinance. As a result of the order corruption cases against President Asif Ali Zardari and many politicians and bureaucrats were settled by the accountability courts in their favor.

Though justice Dogar followed the footsteps introduced by Justice Iftikhar by invoking suo motu notices, he also disposed of many human interest cases initiated by Justice Iftikhar.

With the departure of Chief Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar, Dr Faqir Hussain who was serving as the Registrar of the Supreme Court before the proclamation of emergency will resume his office on Sunday while Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry along with four judges would join the court on Tuesday.