THE unrest within the Islamabad High Court shows no sign of abating, and it is perhaps just as well that the petition filed by five of its judges questioning the court’s seniority list and its acting chief justice’s appointment has been fixed for hearing before the Constitutional Bench in the coming week. In recent days, several IHC judges have expressed concern over the acting chief justice of the court transferring cases from one bench to another “without clear legal justification”. The issue first came to the fore last month, when one of the IHC justices, after discovering they had been reassigned a case they had previously recused from, challenged the acting chief justice’s intervention in returning the case to their bench. On Monday, a similar situation arose when a division bench of the IHC discovered that it had been assigned three blasphemy cases previously heard by another bench. “This case has already been heard in detail by a single bench. It is not appropriate to transfer it to another bench without any justification,” one of the judges remarked on the occasion. The concern was reportedly endorsed by the counsel of the parties present as well.

The IHC has been in the limelight ever since three judges from other high courts were transferred to the court in controversial circumstances. Later, one of those three was also elevated as its acting chief justice, superseding several judges who had been serving at the court for years. Five of the IHC ‘older’ judges subsequently petitioned the Supreme Court challenging the transfer, the changes made to the court’s seniority list, as well as the appointment of the IHC’s acting chief justice. Separately, the Karachi Bar Association also petitioned the court questioning why the transferred judges were immediately given senior positions in the IHC and arguing that their transfers were never made in the public interest but in order to punish certain judges of the IHC and disrupt the court’s functioning. As the Constitutional Bench prepares to hear their arguments, it bears pointing out that it is crucial that this controversy is settled expeditiously and in line with prevailing rules, regulations and the law. The questions being raised about the IHC’s functioning from within are tarnishing its credibility. There must be justice within the judiciary, otherwise public faith in its impartiality will continue to dwindle.

Published in Dawn, April 9th, 2025