ISLAMABAD, April 2: President Pervez Musharraf on Saturday elevated chief justices of the Sindh High Court and Peshawar High Court to fill two seats in the Supreme Court. The names of the judges are: Justice Saiyed Saeed Ashhad and Justice Nasirul Mulk, chief justices of the SHC and PHC, respectively.

According to a notification issued by the law ministry after the approval of the president, only two senior judges have been elevated to the Supreme Court when three seats of the judges were vacant. With the appointment of two judges, the total strength of judges in the Supreme Court has reached to sixteen against the sanctioned strength of 17 judges.

The oath-taking ceremony of the two elevated judges will be held on Tuesday at 1.30pm in the Supreme Court building. Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Nazim Hussain Siddiqui will administer the oath.

The president has also appointed Justice Sabihuddin Ahmed as Chief Justice of the SHC and Justice Tariq Pervaiz as Chief Justice of the PHC.

“I am surprised to learn that the chief justice of the Lahore High Court has still not been elevated to the apex court when according to seniority rules he should have come to the SC,” a former president of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA), Hamid Khan, commented while talking to Dawn.

He referred to last week’s symposium of SCBA in which he had stated that out-of-turn appointments by disregarding the principle of seniority had badly affected the prestigious institutions of the high courts.

In response, he recalled, the chief justice of Pakistan who was presiding over the seminar had observed that the chief justice could only recommend the names of the judges for their elevation in the Supreme Court.