ISLAMABAD: Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui, a former judge of the Islamabad High Court (IHC), on Monday wrote another letter to Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Gulzar Ahmed for early fixing of his appeal.

“In these peculiar circumstances, I humbly request your lordship to issue the necessary directions to the [court]office to immediately fix the matter for hearing,” Mr Siddiqui said in his two-page letter.

Apparently, this is the third letter the petitioner has written to the CJP for early hearing of his case.

Earlier, on Sept 24, a five-judge Supreme Court bench headed by Justice Umar Ata Bandial, which had taken up his appeal against the Oct 11, 2018 notification of his removal as a judge, had asked senior counsel Hamid Khan, who was representing the former judge, to wait for a final judgement in the Justice Qazi Faez Isa case that would be announced soon.

Shaukat Siddiqui was removed for displaying conduct unbecoming of a judge

The majority judgement, along with the dissenting note of Justice Yayha Afridi, in the Justice Isa case was issued on Oct 23. Later, the dissenting notes of Justice Maqbool Baqar and Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah were issued on Nov 4.

The the five-judge SC bench had postponed the proceedings for a month.

In his letter, the former judge had stated that the rights available to an ordinary citizen/litigant would not be denied to him and he would not be discriminated by the court office through subjective approach.

The subject matter of the letter concerns the prolonged delay in disposal of constitutional petition 76/2018 titled Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui versus the federation of Pakistan.

The letter highlighted that he had been out of office since Oct 11, 2018 and that he had not been employed again. “It is universally recognised principle of law that ‘justice delayed is justice denied’,” it added.

“My case is a peculiar example of the same where despite clear orders of the bench, the petition was never fixed on its own and every time, I had to approach your lordship [CJP] through written applications.

“To my utter surprise and disappointment more than two months lapsed but there is no action on the part of the office regarding fixing of the petition,” the former judge said.

Mr Siddiqui was removed from the high judicial office on the recommendation of the Supreme Judicial Council under Article 209 of the Constitution for displaying a conduct unbecoming of a judge for delivering a speech on July 21, 2018, at the District Bar Association, Rawalpindi.

Published in Dawn, December 1st, 2020