LAHORE: The Lahore High Court on Monday upheld an office objection and directed a petitioner’s counsel to furnish minutes of a Punjab caretaker cabinet’s meeting that approved interest-free loans for its 11 judges.

Justice Shams Mahmood Mirza took up a ‘public interest’ petition as an “objection case” since the registrar office had raised objections to its maintainability.

The office objected to the unavailability of different necessary documents including the minutes of the cabinet meeting.

The judge directed the petitioner’s counsel to remove the office objection first.

Advocate Nadeem Sarwar, the counsel, assured the court of providing a copy of the cabinet’s meeting minutes.

Petitioner Mashkoor Hussain pleaded that the caretaker cabinet approved a facility of interest-free loan to each judge equal to 36 basic pays for the purchase/ construction of houses. He said each of the 11 judges has a basic pay to the tune of Rs912,862.

The petitioner pointed out that the loan amount was being released in one installment and would be recovered from the judges through deduction of one-fourth basic pay on a monthly basis. Eventually, the interest-free loan would be recovered in 12 years while some of the judges would reach superannuation in a year or before the recovery of the loan amount.

He stated that there was no precedent that a loan, that too interest-free, was recovered from the pension of a government servant. He said the judges on their own made a desire to get interest-free loans and that the act made them look like politicians and the elite who would usually misuse power for personal gains.

He argued that the act of the judges had serious repercussions as the public would lose its confidence in the judiciary and consider the judges biased because the cases before judiciary were always against the executive branch.

The petitioner said the impugned act of respondents and the judges also amounts to violation of Article 2-A and Article 25 of the Constitution as it was tainted with discrimination and inequality.

He said the public and even the poor were being charged 22pc interest on loans from the banks while a judge withdrawing a whopping salary was getting interest-free loans.

The petitioner asked the court to set aside the approval of the interest-free loans to judges of the high court for being illegal as it violates the equality clause and code of conduct of the judges.

He said if the loan was already granted to the judges, the government should be directed to charge interest as it was being charged from the public at large.

Published in Dawn, September 12th, 2023