ISLAMABAD: Just a few days after the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) issued a show-cause notice to a Supreme Court judge in connection with 10 complaints against him, another reference was filed before the SJC on Monday, this time against a judge of the Islamabad High Court.

The complainant, Advo­cate Raja Maqsood Hussain, alleged Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani of the IHC granted relief to his former associate lawyers and extended favours to certain judges of the subordinate judiciary.

The complainant alle­ged Justice Kayani, in his capacity of being administrative judge, had transferred a part-heard case from the court of Justice Miangul Hassan Aurang­zeb “without his consent” and decided it in favour of a petitioner in less than two weeks.

Referring to the case (cri­minal revision 156/2015 titled Moham-mad Miskeen and others vs Abdul Khaliq and others), the reference stated: “The case was already fixed and heard by the court of Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb and arguments had been made on Feb 9, 2023. It was relisted for Feb 21, 2023 before the same bench, but surprisingly Mr Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani, in the capacity of being an admin judge IHC enlisted the case…in his own court on an earlier date i.e. Feb 14, 2023, without any application by either party and without the consent of the learned judge.”

The complainant stated that a new trend has been developed of hearing the cases of close friends and relatives in the IHC.

“No example of such practices is found even in the most corrupt and incompetent judicial systems across the world, at least not even a single judge in the history of Pakistan’s judicial system has ever acted in such an unethical way.”

Published in Dawn, October 31st, 2023