Justice Isa says 'shocking' that CJP's order was released to media even before him

Justice Qazi Faez Isa has expressed his shock that the judgment in which the Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Gulzar Ahmed restrained him not to hear cases involving Prime Minister Imran Khan, was released to the media even before it was sent to him.

A letter, dated February 12, which surfaced on Saturday, was sent by Justice Isa to the Supreme Court (SC) registrar. In the letter, Justice Isa said that apparently Honourable Justice Ijazul Ahsan received it before him, even the world knew about the CJP's decision before him.

He further said that as per settled practice the verdict, once written by the judge heading the bench, is sent to the next senior-most judge, Express Tribune. Justice Ahsan follows Justice Isa in seniority.

He demanded that the case file be sent to him so he could read it. Raising questions in his letter, the SC judge asked why the settled practice of sending it to the next senior judge was not followed and why the court order was not sent to him.

He questioned who ordered for the verdict to be released to the media before he read it 'let alone had the opportunity to sign it in agreement/disagreement'.

On Friday, a five-page written order, authored by the CJP said that it would not be proper for Justice Isa to hear the matter considering that he had already filed a petition against the Prime Minister of Pakistan, in his personal capacity.

A five-member bench had taken up a case pertaining to the distribution of Rs500m uplift funds among the lawmakers. But the PM had denied that the funds were distributed among the parliamentarians.

However, Justice Isa, a member of the five-judge special bench, presented a WhatsApp message which he said he had received from an unknown source.

The message contained documents showing doling out of massive amounts recently for building roads by the Pak-PWD department in the constituency NA-65 that belongs to an important coalition partner.