Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a plea by four Additional District and Sessions Judges (ADSJs) of Punjab wherein they expressed ‘distrust’ in the Lahore High Court (LHC) and requested to transfer their cases to any other high court.

The four ADSJs are among those judicial officers who were made OSDs by the LHC Administration Committee headed by Chief Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah in February on charges of misconduct. The chief justice had also approved initiation of regular disciplinary inquiry into their conduct.

The four judges are: Khadim Hussain, ADSJ in District Nankana Sahib, Syed Faisal Raza Gillani, ADSJ in District Okara, Mian Masood Hussain, ADSJ in District Rahim Yar Khan and Amjad Ali Shah, ADSJ in Lahore.

In their petition before the top court, the lower court judges had made LHC, its registrar, Provincial Judicial Selection Board and the promoted ADSJs as respondents.

They contended before the top court that their cases for promotion to the rank of district and sessions judges were considered by the Administration Committee of the LHC which promoted 21 officers to the next rank but they were superseded and declared unfit for retention of services without disclosing the reasons.

Subsequently, the petitioners filed writ petitions in the LHC against the alleged illegal recommendations and orders made by the Administration Committee. The four ADSJs stated in their petition that a number of news clippings have quoted the LHC chief justice openly and loudly claiming to have made the ‘corrupt’ judicial officers as OSDs, adding that in this way the respondent had already disclosed its mind about the fate of the petitioners and that he was also predetermined to prosecute the petitioners and for that purpose some fake evidence in the shape of fact-finding report was also likely to be created. “Despite making written applications, the petitioners have not been given the copies of minutes of meetings which is a sheer violation of the provisions contained in Article 19-A of the Constitution, Punjab Promotion Policy 2010 and Punjab Information Act 2013,” the ADSJs contended.

During the course of the hearing before a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, Advocate Rasheed A Rizvi representing the ADSJs pleaded to transfer the case from LHC to any other high court. He further pleaded to restrain the LHC and its Administration Committee, which is headed by LHC chief justice, from taking any further departmental actions or ‘creating’ evidences against his clients’ pending petitions and the transfer application.

The chief justice, while expressing his surprise on the ADSJs’ behaviour of distrust in the high court, rejected the plea and disposed of the matter.