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ISLAMABAD: Just a day before the scheduled hearing of a challenge to the appointment of a sitting Supreme Court judge Qazi Faez Isa, the petitioner approached the apex court with a request to postpone the case “for some good day”.
“Tomorrow the applicant would not be available in Islamabad due to the treatment of his father,” says a one-page application moved before the Supreme Court by Advocate Riaz Hanif Rahi on Tuesday.
A three-judge SC bench comprising Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, Justice Umar Ata Bandial and Justice Ijaz-ul-Hassan on Wednesday was supposed to hold as maintainable or simply reject the petition that had already created a controversy in the country. The petitioner has challenged the appointment of Justice Qazi Faez Isa as the Balochistan High Court chief justice and his elevation to the Supreme Court.
Only last month Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar overruled an objection the SC registrar had raised on the petition of Advocate Rahi last year and then issued a directive to fix the petition before the court to decide its maintainability.
In his application filed on Tuesday, Advocate Rahi stated he had received a phone call at 9:40am from his father who informed him that he was seriously ill. The applicant did not identify the nature of illness and whether he was leaving for hometown or not. “It is therefore, respectfully prayed that the case may kindly be adjourned for some good day, in the interest of justice,” the application added.
When Advocate Rahi was contacted in the evening, he told Dawn that he was still on his way to Rahim Yar Khan and would come to know about the ailment of his father after his complete medical check-up.
‘Dead petition’
Earlier on April 2, a joint meeting of the Balochistan Bar Council, Balochistan High Court Bar Association and Quetta Bar Association adopted a resolution to express their concern over the sudden hearing of what they said a “dead petition” against Justice Isa.
The resolution stated that the legal fraternity of Balochistan expressed serious concern over the proceedings in the dead case against Justice Isa and cautioned that if the proceedings were not halted immediately, they would lodge a protest in coordination with other associations of lawyers across the country.
Also, the Sindh Bar Council expressed concern over the issue and asked if the recent emergency of the petition challenging the appointment of Justice Isa was a mere coincidence or an attempt by non-democratic forces to intimidate independent judges. The SBC wondered if the sudden hearing of the petition was linked to Justice Isa’s report in the Quetta carnage case and his remarks in Faizabad sit-in case about the performance of intelligence agencies and other state functionaries.
Published in Dawn, April 4th, 2018
