PESHAWAR: Peshawar High Court Chief Justice Yahya Afridi on Saturday sacked 13 judicial officers, including a district and sessions judge, and seven additional district and sessions judge for indiscipline.

Earlier this month, he suspended these judges before sending them show cause notices over violation of disciplinary laws, said a news release issued by the PHC registrar.

The development comes with the concurrence of the high court’s administrative committee.

The release said the judicial officers were issued show cause notices before removal by adopting the summary procedure as envisaged in Rule-II of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Government servants (Efficiency and Disciplinary) Rules, 2011.

Though the court didn’t specify reasons for their removal, some of the sacked judges pleaded innocence claiming there existed no complaints or charges against them.

Among the removed judicial officers were district and sessions judge Sardar Mohammad Irshad, currently officer on special duty at the high court; additional district and sessions judge (ADSJ) Malik Amjad Raheem, presently an OSD; ADSJ Amjad Makhdoom currently OSD; ADSJ Riffat Aamir currently OSD; ADSJ Mohsin Ali Turk currently OSD; ADSJ Abdul Hakim Hashmi serving in Shabqadar (Charsadda); ADSJ Qaiser Rahim currently OSD, and ADSJ Manzoor Qadir currently OSD.

Sackings come with concurrence of PHC’s administrative panel

The rest included senior civil judges Safir Qaiser Malik, Adil Akber Khan, Rashid Rauf and Shah Hussain and civil judge Tasawar Hussain.

However, civil judge Johar Ijaz Ali, who was suspended and got a show cause notice, was exonerated of the charge.

The PHC release said after the submission of replies to the show cause notices, proper opportunity of personal hearing was given to all judicial officers.

It added that the judges were also given an opportunity of hearing before the administration committee of the court.

“After finding 13 judicial officers guilty of the charge, the chief justice with the concurrence of the administration committee has imposed upon them major penalty of removal from service except Johar Ijaz Ali, civil judge, who has been exonerated of the charge,” the release said.

One of the ADSJs, Riffat Aamir, in her reply to the notice, said since her appointment in 1999 she had been serving the department honestly, diligently and to the utmost satisfaction of her superiors at different places of posting and that during her entire service, no complaint of any sort was ever filed or reported against her.

She said there had been no oral or written complaint against her nor had any specific allegations been referred in the show cause notice to justify the observations.

“There had been no counselling or warning by the competent authority during my entire service particularly regarding reputation. Certain remarks against me in my personal evaluation report for the years 2014 and 2015 have already been challenged before the service tribunal,” she said.

The ADSJ said she believed that the adverse remarks against her were based on misconception and on subjective approach, due to which a wrong conclusion had been drawn.

Soon after taking oath of his office in Dec 2016, Chief Justice Yahya Afridi had held a meeting with all district and sessions judges as well as the representatives of all bar associations and announced that he won’t tolerate any irregularity on part of judicial officers.

Published in Dawn, April 30th, 2017