ISLAMABAD: Just a few weeks after the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Bar Council had filed a complaint against a sitting judge of the top court before the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC), the Sindh Bar Council also jumped into the fray on Friday by requesting the SJC to initiate an inquiry into the allegation of his misconduct.

The SBC alleged that Justice Syed Mazahar Ali Akbar Naqvi’s conduct not only injured the Supreme Court’s dignity but also tarnished its reputation.

The complainant believed the alleged violation of the code of conduct was sufficient to justify removal of the judge from office.

Nearly half a dozen complaints have been filed over the past few months against the SC judge. Besides Sindh and KP bar councils, Pakistan Bar Council, a Lahore-based social media influencer Advocate Mian Dawood, PML-N Lawyers’ Forum and a private citizen Ghulam Murtaza Khan have moved misconduct and assets beyond means complaints against the Justice Naqvi who was elevated to the Supreme Court in March 2020.

In the fresh application, the SBC cited a 2014 judgment in which the SC bench comprising then Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, Justice Amir Hani Muslim and Justice Ijaz Ahmed Chaudhry had made certain observations about the conduct of the respondent judge when he was a Lahore High Court judge.

The SC bench had noted: “We may observe that discretion exercised by the learned judge (respondent) while passing the impugned order in the instant case has appeared to us to be somewhat colourable as after dismissal of second application for suspension of sentence bearing the same ground the only difference in the respondent’s third application for the same relief was a different counsel for that respondent.”

The Sindh bar recalled that after the SC observation, Justice Naqvi had filed a review petition seeking to expunge the strictures passed by the bench against him.

Subsequently, the review was fixed before a bench comprising Justice Khosa, Justice Chaudhry and Justice Gulzar Ahmed.

The bench not only dismissed the review petition but also observed, “…. a judge of the High Court approaching this court in person and seeking review…. is surely out of the ordinary and it may raise many an eyebrow in view of the provisions of Articles VI of the Code of Conduct prescribed by the Supreme Judicial Council.”

Audio recordings

The complaint noted that recently some audio recordings, purportedly based on the judge’s talk with prominent politicians and certain lawyers have been widely circulated on social media and mainstream media. The SBC mentioned that the audio recordings had not been officially denied.

Published in Dawn, April 29th, 2023