KARACHI, June 11: The Sindh High Court on Monday set aside the decision of the parliamentary committee that had rejected the confirmation of two additional SHC judges for permanent appointment. The court also directed the committee to implement the recommendation of the Judicial Commission (JC).
The SHC order came on a petition of Abdur Rehman Farooq Pirzada, president of the Sindh High Court Bar Association, Sukkur chapter, who had challenged the parliamentary committee’s decision on Sept 9, 2011 pertaining to the rejection of the JC recommendation to confirm Justices Ghulam Sarwar Korai and Irfan Saadat Khan, whose tenure ended on Sept 24, 2011, as permanent judges of the high court.
The JC had made the recommendation on Aug 27, 2011.
A three-member bench comprising Justices Maqbool Baqar, Faisal Arab and Sajjad Ali Shah had on March 19 this year reserved its judgment on the petition after hearing the petitioner’s counsel and the federal government’s law officers.
According to the petitioner’s counsel, Advocate Dr Farogh Nasim, once the JC recommends the names of judges, the PC cannot overturn such recommendations except with proper reasons, which were absent in the instant case.
He submitted that the high court judges were appointed as additional judges prior to the 18th constitutional amendment and their names were included in the recommendations sent by the JC for confirmation.
The counsel submitted that the two judges were not confirmed by the committee, which also did not give any strong reason for not confirming them.
While allowing the petition, the bench set aside the impugned decision of the parliamentary committee in respect of the two judges, and directed the respondents to implement the JC recommendation and issue a notification accordingly.
The court observed that parliamentary committee purportedly relied on intelligence reports from the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the Intelligence Bureau which did not justify the committee’s refusal to accept the unanimous JC recommendation.
The court observed that reports from ISI clearly showed that there was no complaint of corruption in relation of a judge and he enjoyed satisfactory repute while the IB report was entirely unsubstantiated of any reason and reflected irresponsible attitude of its undisclosed author and could not be allowed to form any basis for discrediting the judge.
It further observed that the 13 members of the JC were law-knowing and law-related persons who were capable of making objective evaluation of suitability of a nominee for judicial office. However, it added, the parliamentary committee lacked such a level of experience and did not possess firsthand information about the nominee.
The court observed that the committee could not lawfully rely upon the opinion of just one member of the commission expressed by him prior to collective deliberation for refusing to accept the ultimate collective decision of the commission. The court observed that Article 175-A of the constitution expressly mandated collective decision of judicial commission and left no room for individual opinion of any member of the judicial commission.
Waheeda Shah case
The Sindh High Court on Monday issued notices to the respondents for June 14 in a petition filed by Pakistan People’s Party candidate Waheeda Shah against her disqualification by the Election Commission (EC).
The election commission had disqualified Ms Shah for two years for slapping a presiding officer, Habiba Memon, and other polling staff during the Feb 25 by-election and declared the by-poll void.
However, her disqualification order was suspended by the SHC circuit bench at Hyderabad against her disqualification from contesting election.
The EC challenged the high court’s interim order in the Supreme Court, which remanded the case back to the high court directing it to dispose of the petition within two weeks.