ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) accepting the explanation of SC Additional Registrar (Judicial) Nazar Abbas discharged the show-cause notice issued to him for not fixing the case as per the court order 16.01.2025.
A two-judge bench comprising Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah and Justice Aqeel Ahmed Abbasi on Monday released its judgment on the contempt notice, which it on January 23 after hearing the arguments of amici and Attorney General for Pakistan (AGP) had reserved.
The judgment found that it was the administrative decisions of the Committees that illegally nullified the judicial orders and unlawfully deprived the regular Bench of its judicial power to decide the jurisdictional question raised before it. “We are sanguine that the office shall fix the main case; i.e., CPLA No. 836-K of 2020; etc., before the original three-member bench comprising Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah, Justice Ayesha A Malik, and Justice Irfan Saadat Khan in the first week of February 2025.”
The judgment noted; “Upon examining the case of the present alleged contemner, the Additional Registrar (Judicial) of this Court, we find that he did not deliberately avoid the fixation of the cases before the Bench as directed in the court order.” There is no evidence to suggest that he had any personal interest in the matter or had connived with any of the parties to the case, nor did he act with the intention of causing damage to any of the parties to the case, it added.
There is no indication of malafide intent in his actions. In the absence of any such factors or elements of contumacy, his conduct cannot be considered contumacious, nor can it be said to have suffered from malafides, requiring contempt proceedings against him. For these reasons, by accepting his explanation, the show-cause notice issued against him for contempt proceeding is discharged.
The judgment said that following the discharge of the show-cause notice against the alleged contemner, the Additional Registrar (Judicial), the matter should be considered concluded or whether it should proceed further against the members of the two Committees, where the first Committee unlawfully withdrew the part-heard cases from a Bench and transferred it for the consideration of the other Committee, through an administrative order by undoing the effect of a judicial order.
It observed that the second committee, in total disregard of the judicial order passed by the regular Bench, simply in pursuance of the direction of the first committee, went ahead and fixed the case before the Constitutional Bench on 27 January 2025.
“Both the Committees were not legally authorised to take administrative decisions dated 17 January 2025 in violation of the judicial order. In this background, it appears that the matter has to proceed further against the members of the two Committees. However, judicial propriety and decorum demand that the said question be considered and decided by the full court of the Supreme Court so that it is authoritatively decided once and for all.”
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
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