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KARACHI, Nov 4: Four more judges of the Sindh High Court took an oath under the provisional constitutional order (PCO) at the Governor’s House on Sunday, while four additional names of new judges for the provincial apex court were finalised by the government.
Justice Mahmood Alam Rizvi, Justice Nadeem Azhar Siddiqui, Justice Ali Sain Dino Metlo and Justice Azizullah Memon renewed their oath under the PCO. The oath was administered by the newly appointed Chief Justice of the SHC, Mohammed Afzal Soomro.
Sources in the legal fraternity who are close to the Sindh government said that the four new judges of the SHC were likely to take their oaths late Sunday, since a notification from the law division was being awaited.
“Advocate-General Khawaja Naveed Ahmed, Additional Advocate-General Qazi Khalid, Prosecutor-General Rana Shamim and Abdul Rahman Farooq Pirzada are among the names finalised as the new SHC judges,” said a source.
Earlier, he said, Chief Justice Mohammed Afzal Soomro visited the SHC and held meetings with the senior judges before they took an oath at the Governor’s House.
Entry to SHC restricted
Meanwhile, the registrar of the SHC warned that entry to the court’s premises on Monday would be restricted to people directly concerned with the court, a move seen as a method to keep defiant judges and lawyers away from the court since they are likely to attempt to protest there.
“Learned advocates who must appear in court will have to show their bar council card to security personnel in front of the entrance gate of the high court compound,” said a Sindh government handout. It said that litigant public could enter the SHC premises subject to showing proof that their cases were fixed for the same day. The registrar of the SHC also imposed the same condition on court staff members.
An official of the home department told Dawn that in order to make the orders of the SHC registrar effective, Rangers would be deployed outside the court premises. Anyone failing to meet the entry criteria would therefore not be in a position to challenge the court security. “The registrar has issued the handout for the information of the general public and it is now the responsibility of every citizen to abide by these directives,” he added.
The official’s comments came as a warning for mainly the legal fraternity, since the Sindh High Court Bar Association plans to boycott SHC proceedings on Monday in protest against the SHC judges taking an oath under the provisional constitutional order.
