ISLAMABAD: Judicial Commission of Pakistan (JCP) with a majority 5-4 rejected the nominees of the Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) for five vacant seats of judges in the Supreme Court of Pakistan.
The JCP meeting was held on Thursday in the Supreme Court building, Islamabad, which was presided over by CJP Umar Ata Bandial, who is also the JCP chairman, and participated by four senior judges, and one retired judge of the apex court, Federal Minister of Law and Justice, Attorney General for Pakistan (AGP), and the representative of the Pakistan Bar Council (PBC).
The Chief Justice, Justice Sardar Tariq Masood, Justice Ijazul Ahsan, Justice Sajjad Ali Shah, Justice (retired) Sarmad Jalal Osmany, Law Minister Azam Nazir Tarar, the PBC representative, Akhtar Hussain, attended the meeting in-person, while Justice Qazi Faez Isa and the AGP Ashtar Ausaf joined via Zoom.
The JCP considered the names of Chief Justice Peshawar High Court (PHC) Qaisar Rashid Khan, Sindh High Court (SHC) judges – Justice Syed Hasan Azhar Rizvi, Justice Muhammad Shafi Siddiqui, Justice Naimatullah Phulpoto, and Justice Shahid Waheed of Lahore High Court (LHC) to fill the existing vacancies in the Supreme Court.
Justice Isa, Justice Tariq Masood, law minister, attorney general, and the PBC representative opposed the CJP nomination for the appointment in the apex court.
Appointment of five apex court judges: Justice Isa objects to summoning of JCP meeting
After a detailed discussion, it was proposed by the chairman JCP to defer the meeting in order to enable the chief justice to place additional information and data about those already proposed and if he considers appropriate, add more names to the list of proposees for consideration by the JCP.
The proposal to defer the meeting was supported by Justice Ijaz, Justice Sajjad, Justice Sarmad, and the Attorney General. It was accordingly decided to defer the meeting. The date of the next meeting will be communicated to the Members of the Judicial Commission by the chairman JCP.
However, the sources shared that as Justice Qazi Faez was talking the chief justice and Justice Ijazul Ahsan abruptly left the meeting without adjourning the meeting.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022