ISLAMABAD: A petition has been filed in the Supreme Court challenging the exercisability of the power of remand within the court, keeping in view the Islamabad High Court (IHC) judgment wherein a division bench of the IHC remanded a matter to a single bench of the same court. Advocate Riaz Hanif Rahi on Friday filed the petition under Article 185 (3) against the IHC order dated May 11, 2016, wherein a two-member bench consisting of Justice Noorul Haq N. Qureshi and Justice Aamer Farooq set aside orders of Justice Shaukat Aziz Saddiqui. The two-member bench then remanded the matter to Justice Saddiqui for re-hearing, observing that a bulletproof car was given to Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry without any legal provision. It is pertinent to mention here that Rahi is famous for filing petitions on controversial issues. In the past, courts fined him for filing ‘frivolous’ petitions. However, in a new petition, Rahi stated that the high degree of comity was required among the judges of superior courts and functioning would be hampered if the judge of the same high court is treated as subordinate. The petition added that remand was the remittal of a case to a lower court while it had already been held that a writ could not be issued from one high court to another or from one judge to another because it would affect the functioning and the constitution of the court concerned. “Such a course will destroy the traditional high degree of comity among the judges of superior courts that was essential for the smooth working of the superior courts,” the petition reads.
“If this bar is not there, then the judgements delivered by individual groups of judges of high courts in different jurisdictions may in the final event be challenged by litigants under Article 199 as without lawful authority on variety of grounds such as error apparent on the face of the judgement, order, decree, bias, mala fide, etc,” says the petition. The petitioner stated that if a division bench remands a case to a single bench, the single bench judge might do the same when he sits on a division bench. He said that this practice could affect the functioning of the court.