ISLAMABAD: National Assembly Standing Committee on Law and Justice on Tuesday declined to approve a bill to increase the strength of judges of Islamabad High Court (IHC).

The private member’s “Islamabad High Court (Amendment) Bill 2019” introduced by Member National Assembly Aliya Kamran sought to increase the number of IHC’s judges from six to 10.

At present, the sanctioned strength of the IHC judges is six and the chief justice. The bill proposed creation of four more posts to be appointed from provinces and the federal capital.

After detailed deliberations, the committee unanimously recommended that the bill may not be passed by the assembly.

It also recommended that the Ministry of Law and Justice shall seek opinion/proposals from all bar councils regarding improvements in the qualifications and procedure for the appointment of judges of Supreme Court and all high courts.

It was also recommended that the ministry of law shall prepare and present a working paper before the committee on the given issue in its next meeting.

The committee considered the “The Constitution (Amendment) Bill 2019 (Amendment in Article 51)”, a government bill, which was to increase the number of seats of minorities in the national and provincial assemblies.

The committee unanimously recommended that the bill may be passed by the assembly.

The committee considered similar bills but deferred these till its next meeting due to unavailability of the movers.

Published in Dawn, March 13th, 2019