ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Thursday asked a petitioner to convince it why his plea challenging the appointment of judges in the Sindh High Court (SHC) as well as the Sindh district judiciary should be heard when the forum of Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) was available under Article 209 of the Constitution.

A three-judge Supreme Court bench headed by Justice Umar Ata Bandial, however, allowed Advocate Khawaja Shamsul Islam, the counsel for the petitioner Ghulam Sarwar Qureshi, to make the judges whose appointments had been challenged parties as well as furnish material to substantiate the allegations against them.

The petitioner has requested the apex court to declare all the appointments made in the SHC as well as its staff, civil judges and additional district judges in the lower judiciary of the province since 2017 ab initio, mala fide, illegal, unlawful, unconstitutional, null and void having of no legal effect.

The petition has also requested the apex court to constitute a joint investigation team (JIT), comprising senior judges of the Supreme Court with senior-most judge of the SHC, to scrutinise the appointments.

Published in Dawn, December 18th, 2020