ISLAMABAD: Former Islamabad High Court judge Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui requested the Supreme Judicial Council’s (SJC) secretary on Thursday to urgently provide the certified copies and complete order sheets in the four references moved against him and former IHC chief justice Muhammad Anwar Khan Kasi.

In a one-page application, Mr Siddiqui reminded SJC secretary Jawad Paul, who also happens to be the Supreme Court’s registrar, that the present application was the third in line, with the previous ones being moved on Nov 3 and Nov 5, 2020.

Mr Siddiqui regretted that he had yet to receive a response or the requisite certified copies even after one year and four months.

This conduct of the office was causing serious prejudice to the applicant, as the non-issuance of the certified copies might deprive the applicant to plead his case before the Supreme Court, he said in the application.

Regrets he has yet to receive response to previous requests made in 2020

An appeal is already pending before a five-judge Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Umar Ata Bandial against the opinion of the SJC as well as the Oct 11, 2018 notification under which Mr Siddiqui was removed as a superior court judge for his July 21, 2018 speech at Rawalpindi’s District Bar Association.

In that speech, Mr Siddiqui made remarks against the involvement of certain officers of the state’s executive organ, especially the country’s premier spy agency ISI, in judicial affairs to allegedly manipulate high court benches’ formation.

On Dec 7, the Supreme Court bench postponed further proceedings after senior counsel Hamid Khan, who was representing Mr Siddiqui, accused the SJC of acting under ISI’s influence.

On Feb 7, the petitioner instituted another application before the Supreme Court, seeking early fixing of his appeal since several legal, fundamental and constitutional rights were involved in the case.

In the fresh application to the SJC, the petitioner pleaded that the secretary was well aware of the fact that the applicant was a respondent judge in the four cited references, and in pursuance of the Oct 11, 2018 recommendations of the SJC, he was removed from his office as a high court judge.

The application reminded that the applicant had challenged the recommendations/notification before the Supreme Court and it was likely to be taken up in the next week or thereafter.

In support of the grounds taken in the petition, complete order sheets were required by the applicant and, therefore, in the interest of justice, it was requested again that the requisite certified copies of complete order sheets in these references along with the preliminary opinion rendered by the SJC, in all four complaints/references against the applicant and complete record of references be provided on an urgent basis.

In his original petition, the former judge also requested the apex court to make appropriate directions or structure or regulate the discretion available to the chief justice of all superior courts to constitute or dissolve benches and assign cases or issue case rosters, in particular, to hold and declare that the direction of the chief justice can only be exercised after meaningful consultation with the top four senior-most judges of the court and only as per certain settled and defined criteria.

Published in Dawn, February 18th, 2022