LAHORE: Justice Ayesha A Malik of the Lahore High Court on Friday overruled a registrar office objection on two identical petitions against alleged irregularities in promotion/elevation of all assistant registrars working in the high court establishment.

Justice Malik heard the petitions as “objection case” as the office had questioned their maintainability.

However, the judge after hearing initial arguments of the petitioners’ counsel overruled the objection and directed the office to fix the petitions before an appropriate bench.

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

The Punjab governor, federal finance secretary, auditor general of Pakistan, accountant general of Punjab, provincial secretaries for law and finance, Punjab director general audit and LHC registrar had been made respondents in the petitions.

One of the petitioners contended that the illegal and unlawful assistant registrars had been appointed or promoted by former 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 straightaway 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/promotions of assistant registrars made in violation of the rules and ensure that all future appointments/promotions were made strictly in accordance with law.

Alamgir’s plea: The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Friday allowed time to the state prosecutor to file reply on a petition of a student, Alamgir Wazir, the nephew of MNA and Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement leader Ali Wazir, seeking post-arrest bail in a sedition case lodged against him for participating in ‘Student Solidarity March’.

Justice Asjad Javaid Ghural took up the petition while the prosecutor said some examinations of the accused/petitioner, including voice matching test, were yet to be conducted. Therefore, he said, more time be given to the prosecution to submit reply to the petition.

The judge allowed the request and adjourned hearing till Feb 4.

Published in Dawn, January 25th, 2020