President Asif Ali Zardari on Sunday declared Justice Sarfaraz Dogar the “senior-most judge” of the Islamabad High Court (IHC), according to a fresh seniority list released by the Ministry of Law and Justice.
The development followed the Supreme Court’s verdict on June 19, declaring the transfer of IHC judges constitutional and referring the matter of seniority determination to the president. Earlier this year, the law ministry’s transfer of three judges to the IHC had disrupted the seniority list.
On Friday, however, five judges of the IHC challenged the SC’s decision to uphold the transfer of three judges — Justice Sardar Dogar from the Lahore High Court (LHC), Justice Khadim Hussain Soomro from the Sindh High Court (SHC), and Justice Muhammad Asif from the Balochistan High Court (BHC).
According to the latest seniority list, Justice Dogar was designated as the most senior judge of the IHC, while the two other judges, Justice Soomro and Justice Asif, were ranked 9th and 11th, respectively.
President Zardari also declared that the status of the transfer of all three judges would be permanent.
The controversy had begun on Feb 20 when five IHC judges — Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani, Justice Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri, Justice Babar Sattar, Justice Sardar Ejaz Ishaq Khan and Justice Saman Rafat Imtiaz — had filed a representation, contending that under the Constitution, a high court judge must take a new oath upon transfer to a different high court, which should affect their seniority ranking.
According to the petition, the inter se seniority of the transferred judges should be determined from the date they took oath as justices of the IHC. Consequently, they should be placed lower in the seniority list than the petitioner judges.
The five judges also did not attend Justice Dogar’s oath-taking ceremony as the acting IHC chief justice.