PESHAWAR: Three sacked judges of the district courts on Saturday asked the Peshawar High Court’s chief justice to review their removal from service claiming there exists no evidence of their indiscipline.

Sacked additional district and sessions judges Naeem Iqbal and Aurangzeb Khan and civil judge Shakeelur Rehman told a news conference at Peshawar Press Club that they held judiciary in high esteem and wanted justice through fair trial.

They said they’d got show cause notices claiming they’d violated discipline, but no one produced its evidence.

Say will use all available legal options against termination

The sacked judges said members of judiciary dispended justice to the people but ironically, they’re denied justice.

They said they had filed a petition with the court against their suspension but even then, they’re sacked in undue haste.

Mr Naeem Iqbal said as the high court had delayed hearing the petition, he and other judges moved the Supreme Court to get orders for early hearing, but to no avail.

The former judges said all accused and even suspected terrorists got an opportunity of fair trial but they were not even told about their ‘wrongdoing’.

They said they wanted to know the reasons for their termination and get a fair chance to clarify their position on the matter.

Mr Naeem said he had served judiciary for 20 years, Aurangzeb Khan for 16 years and Shakeel for 11 years and after termination, they won’t be able to do any other job except legal practice and that, too, from scratch.

He claimed that the judges had been removed from service on basis of hearsay.

The sacked judges said the news about their termination was released to media damaging them and that the move was tantamount to their media trial.

They said the media reports created doubts about their integrity and dutifulness and also embarrassed them before their children, relatives and friends.

The sacked judges said they would use all available legal options against termination, including moving the service tribunal.

Published in Dawn, August 19th, 2018