ISLAMABAD: Newly-appointed additional judges of Islamabad High Court (IHC) Babar Sattar and Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri took oath of their office on Wednesday. IHC Justice Athar Minallah administered the oath to both of them.

Judges, IHC officials and lawyers were present at the ceremony.

According to a notification issued by the law ministry, President Dr Arif Alvi had, earlier this week approved the appointments for a period of one year.

Following Mr Sattar and Mr Jahangiri’s appointment, the strength of judges at IHC now stands at nine, including the IHC CJ.

The eight-member parliamentary committee on the appointment of judges held its meeting at the Parliament House. Members of the committee include: Senators Farooq H. Naek (PPP), Javed Abbasi (PML-N), Azam Swati (PTI), Sarfraz Bugti (BAP) and MNAs Raja Pervez Ashraf (PPP), Rana Sanaullah (PML-N) and Ali Mohammad Khan and Mohammad Asim Nazeer (PTI).

The parliament recently increased the sanctioned strength of judges in IHC from seven to 10. At present seven judges are working in the IHC including three additional judges.

Mr Sattar a prominent lawyer, columnist and analyst completed his LLM from Harvard School of Law while Mr Jahangiri, former advocate general of Islamabad is an expert in criminal, constitutional and civil law.

He was the elected president of Islamabad High Court Bar Association (IHCBA) in 2016 and was previously the District Bar Association of Islamabad president.

Under Article 175-A of the Constitution, for the appointment of judges at a high court, the Judicial Commission of Pakistan (JCP) comprises of chief justice of Pakistan, senior most judges of the Supreme Court, chief justice and senior most judge of the IHC, law minister, attorney general, and members of Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) and Islamabad Bar Council (IBC).

Published in Dawn, December 31st, 2020