RAWALPINDI: The Raw­al­pindi Bench of the Lahore High Court (LHC) on Wedn­esday asked for a definitive ruling to resolve a conflict bet­ween an administrative policy from the nation’s top judicial body and establis­h­­ed court precedent, creating a jurisdictional impasse over how narcotics cases are handled.

Justice Jawad Hassan of the LHC’s Rawalpindi Bench has referred a critical question to the chief justice: should bail applications in serious narcotics cases be heard by a single judge or a two-judge division bench?

The issue surfaced during the hearing of a bail petition for Shoaib Khan, who is seeking post-arrest bail in a case registered under the Control of Narcotic Substan­ces Act (CNSA), 1997.

At the heart of the conflict is a new directive from the National Judicial Policy Ma­­king Committee (NJPMC), which resolved in an Aug 18, 2025, press release that all cases under the CNSA, inclu­ding bail matters, must be heard by a two-judge bench.

Should bail applications be heard by a single judge or a two-judge division bench, judge asks

The committee’s National Judi­cial Policy is considered binding on all courts to ensure uniformity.

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However, this directive is in direct contradiction with a 2018 ruling by a division bench of the same court.

In the case of Muhammad Ashraf alias Achi vs The State, the court held that a single judge has the jurisdiction to hear such bail applications, a practice that was later formalised by an adm­inistrative order and has been the standard for years.

In his referral, Justice Hassan highlighted the legal dilemma, noting that while the NJPMC policy is considered binding, established judicial precedents cannot be simply overridden by an administrative directive without proper legal review.

The inconsistency “raises significant questions about the hierarchy of judicial authority and the enforceability of policy directives vis-à-vis prior judicial decisions,” the court observed.

To resolve the dispute and ensure judicial consistency, Justice Hassan has recommended that the LHC chief justice constitute a larger bench at the court’s principal seat in Lahore to deliver a final ruling on which legal authority should prevail.

Published in Dawn, August 21st, 2025