KARACHI: The Sindh High Court has dismissed a petition challenging the appointment of all the judges of the Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) for not being maintainable.

Petitioner Ali Tahir challenged their appointments of the FCC judges as well as the 27th Amendment.

A two-judge constitutional bench headed by Adnan Iqbal Chaudhry noted, “It was settled by the Supreme Court in Malik Asad Ali vs Federation of Pakistan (PLD 1998 SC 161) that when a petition seeking information in the nature of quo warranto is brought against a Judge of a superior Court, it is not hit by sub-Article (5) of Article 199 of the Constitution.”

However, the bench said that the ratio of such judgement needed to be appreciated as the apex court held, “when the appointment of a judge of superior court is challenged on the ground that he did not possess the qualification prescribed by the Constitution, the relator is not asking the Court to strike down any of his actions which he has performed or is performing as a judge of the superior court but asks for examination of his personal qualification to be entitled to hold the office of the judge of superior court”.

It observed that petitioner had not sought any inquiry into the appointment of judges of the FCC and rather acknowledged that they held such office by virtue of the 27th Amendment.

“The challenge to their appointment is predicated, not on the absence of a prescribed qualification, but on the challenge to the Twenty Seventh Amendment itself. Therefore, till such time that Amendment stands, there is no separate cause for a writ of quo warranto against said judges,” it added.

“The petition should be confined to legal grounds,” the bench said, noting that the office objection about maintainability of the petition for impleading the judges of FCC was sustained and the relevant prayer clause was therefore dismissed in limine.

Published in Dawn, December 2nd, 2025