LAHORE: Justice Ayesha A Malik of the Lahore High Court will take up on Friday (today) two separate petitions by bar members questioning alleged irregularities in promotion/elevation of all assistant registrars working in the establishment of the high court.

Mian Maqsood Ahmad and Asadullah Virk, both members of the Lahore High Court Bar Association, argued in their petitions that all serving assistant registrars had been elevated without following the criteria, that includes pre-promotion examination, a pre-requisite and mandatory according to the rules.

Advocate Ahmad pleads that the illegal and unlawful assistant registrars had been appointed or promoted by then chief justices of the LHC in exercise of discretionary powers under rule 26 of appointment and conditions of service rules.

He said the high court appointment and condition of sub rules 8 & 9 categorically provided that no such appointment could straight away be made as observance of the sub rules was mandatory and obligatory prior to making such appointments.

The petitioner submitted that it had been learnt through reliable sources that the LHC was still planning to appoint/promote junior staff to 40 posts of assistant registrars without conducting mandatory pre-promotion examination.

He asked the court to set aside all previous appointments/promotion of assistant registrars made in violation of the rules and ensure that all future appointments/promotions were made strictly in accordance with law.

The judge will take up the petitions as “objection case” as the registrar office questioned their competency.

Published in Dawn, January 24th, 2020