ISLAMABAD: The Judicial Commission of Pakistan (JCP) has recommended Iqbal Hameedur Rehman for the appointment as the next Federal Shariat Court (FSC) chief justice.

The JCP meeting was held under the leadership of Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Umar Ata Bandial on Monday where the recommendation was unanimously approved. Justice Sardar Tariq Masood, the third senior-most SC judge, had suggested the name of Mr Rehman for the post.

The JCP is the apex body which appoints judges to the Supreme Court, high courts and the FSC.

Mr Rehman was a judge of the Supreme Court from 2013 to 2016 when he resigned after being accused of making illegal appointments in the Islamabad High Court (IHC) during his tenure as the court’s top judge.

He was appointed as the first chief justice of the IHC on Jan 3, 2011. He was later elevated to the Supreme Court as a judge on Feb 25, 2013.

His resignation from the top court came after the appointments, deputations and reappointments, made by him in the IHC from 2011 to the end of 2012 were declared illegal by the then SC judge Amir Hani Muslim.

Later things got murkier after the IHC Bar Association general secretary Mohammad Waqas

sent a reference to the Supreme Judicial Council for Mr Reman’s restoration.

Mr Rehman comes from a family of litigators and adjudicators. His father late Justice Hamoodur Rehman was appointed the advocate general of East Pakistan in 1953, from where he was elevated to the Dhaka High Court as a judge in 1954.

Published in Dawn, May 16th, 2023