KARACHI, Dec 13: Justice Agha Rafiq Ahmed Khan of the Sindh High Court, currently serving as the federal law secretary, is being tipped for a key office in the superior judiciary.

He was first elevated to the high court in 1995 but was laid off and subsequently reverted to the subordinate judiciary as the district and sessions judge of Nawabshah.

The Supreme Court held in its 1996 judgment in Al Jehad Trust case that judicial officers also had legitimate expectancy of elevation to the high court in accordance with their seniority. Justice Agha Rafiq was then ranked much below in the judicial officers’ seniority list. Chief Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar was among the judicial officers elevated in 1995 and retained in the light of Al Jehad case verdict.

In 2002, he was a strong candidate for elevation but was held junior to former justice Mohammad Sadiq Leghari, who retired from the high court in 2006, and another district judge, who retired as a judicial officer. District and sessions judge Azizullah M. Memon was also elevated in 2002 but there was no dispute over his seniority. The judicial service tribunal consisting of two high court judges, meanwhile, allowed Justice Agha Rafiq’s representation for seniority over Justice Leghari.

Agha Rafiq was finally elevated as additional judge of the Sindh High Court on Dec 14, 2007, strictly in conformity with his seniority in the judicial service. He was placed above his service colleagues, Justices Syed Pir Ali Shah, Bin Yamin, Arshad Noor Khan and Dr Qamaruddin Bohra.

Though it pertained to his ‘inter se’ seniority among a couple of his colleagues, the service tribunal’s recent decision in his favour prompted reports about his seniority in the high court. However, it was the federal law ministry’s notifications of Dec 12 that set off a new round of speculation about his likely appointment to a more important position.

One of the two notifications ‘reappointed’ Justice Agha Rafiq and ‘appointed’ additional judge Bin Yamin as a (permanent) judge of the SHC. The other notification gave a six-month extension each to additional judges Syed Pir Ali Shah and Arshad Noor Khan. Justice Bohra, a former accountability court judge, ceased to be a high court judge on expiry of his one-year tenure as additional judge.

Unlike Justice Bin Yamin, the notification does not describe Justice Agha Rafiq as an additional judge but ‘reappoints’ him as a (permanent and confirmed) judge. According to the observers of the judicial scene, the ministry might be reckoning his seniority from the year 2002 when, according to the service tribunal, he became eligible for elevation in accordance with his seniority in the judicial service.

However, the tribunal decision would not take him too far as the incumbent chief justice and senior puisne judge and a number of lawyer judges, including Justices Khilji Arif Hussain, Amir Hani Muslim and Munib Ahmed Khan, remain senior to him as judges of the high court. They are followed by another batch of service judges led by Justice Yasmin Abbasy, but they were all inducted in 2005.

The word ‘reappointed’ had recently been used for judges who were deposed on Nov 3, 2007, following the imposition of emergency. The ‘reappointed’ judges had their seniority restored in their respective courts.