PESHAWAR: President Dr Arif Alvi on Wednesday appointed three judicial officers as additional judges to the Peshawar High Court for a period of one year.

However, the appointment of Fazal Subhan, Shahid Khan and Khurshid Iqbal will be ‘subject to the final outcome of an appeal pending before the Supreme Court against a judgement of the high court ordering their appointment has been challenged by the government’, read a notification issued by the ministry of law and justice.

The appointments will take the number of high court judges to the sanctioned strength of 20. The judges’ tenure will begin the day they take oath of their offices.

The notification was issued to implement the high court’s judgement issued on May 10, 2022, setting aside the Jan 19 decision of the Parliamentary Committee for Appointment of Judges against confirming the recommendations of the Judicial Commission of Pakistan (JCP) to elevate the three district and sessions judges as the court’s additional judges.

Appointments subject to outcome of case pending with SC, says ministry

While accepting three petitions, the court had ordered the federal government through the federal law secretary to immediately implement the Jan 5, 2022, recommendations of the JCP by notifying the appointment of district judges Fazal Subhan, Shahid Khan and Dr Khurshid Iqbal as additional judges.

However, the order was not implemented due to which a contempt petition was filed by one of the petitioners Naeem Ahmad Khattak requesting the court to proceed against the respondents including the federal law secretary for committing contempt of the high court.

A bench consisting of Justice Lal Jan Khattak and Justice Abdul Shakoor will take up that contempt petition today (Thursday).

During the last hearing on July 7, the bench had given law secretary Raja Naeem Akbar the last chance to implement its judgement and warned that in case of failure to comply with its orders,he would face consequences provided under the law.

Advocate Ali Azeem Afridi has been representing the petitioner.

The petitioner said the high court had six vacancies of judges for which the chief justice, after consulting other judges and scrutinising the credentials of numerous candidates, recommended the names of the three district judges as well as three lawyers, including Kamran Hayat Miankhel, Mohammad Ijaz Khan and Mohammad Faheem Wali, for appointment as additional judges.

He said that the JCP in its meeting on Jan 5, 2022, re-examined the said nominations and after a threadbare discussion recommended the said six names including that of the three petitioners, with the majority of 10 to 2 with one member abstaining for appointment as additional judges.

The petitioner, however, contended that on Jan 19, the parliamentary committee did not confirm the appointment of the three judicial officers in light of the ‘principle of seniority’ and that their names were sent back to the JCP for reconsideration.

He added that acting upon the decision of the parliamentary committee, the federal government had not sent the names of three judicial officers to the president for issuance of notification of their appointment, whereas names of the remaining three recommended persons were notified as additional judges of the high court.

The petitioner said that the high court had set aside the said decision of the parliamentary committee and therefore, it was binding on the government to notify the said three judicial officers as additional judges.

Published in Dawn, July 14th, 2022