PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court on Thursday against sought response of the parliamentary committee on the judges’ appointment regarding the non-confirmation of three judicial officers as the high court’s additional judges.

A bench consisting of Justice Lal Jan Khattak and Justice Kamran Hayat fixed March 1 for the next hearing into two identical petitions filed by three district and sessions judges challenging the decision of the parliamentary committee against confirming the recommendations of the Judicial Commission of Pakistan (JCP) for the judges’ appointment.

When the bench began hearing into the petitions, it was informed that during previous hearing, the court had sought the relevant records as well as response of the parliamentary committee to the pleas of the petitioners, but the committee had so far not filed its reply.

The bench decided to adjourn the hearing as attorney general for Pakistan and KP advocate general were also not present.

One petition was jointly filed by judges Fazal Subhan and Shahid Khan and the other by Dr Khurshid Iqbal.

The petitioners prayed the high court to declare unconstitutional, illegal and without lawful authority the impugned decision of the parliamentary committee of not confirming the JCP recommended names, and set it aside.

They requested the court to declare that all six names nominated by the JCP for appointment as additional judges of the Peshawar High Court should be deemed to have been confirmed under Article 175-A (12) of the Constitution and the parliamentary committee was bound to send all the six names to the Prime Minister who should forward the same to the country’s president for appointment.

The petitioners further requested the court to direct the parliamentary committee to send the names of the petitioners recommended by the JCP to the prime minister for forwarding it to the country’s president in accordance with Article 175A(13) of the Constitution for their appointment as additional judges.

Senior lawyers Abdul Lateef Afridi, Syed Mudasser Ameer, Adnan Khan, Yaseen Raza Khan and Tariq Afghan appeared for the petitioners.

They said six vacancies of judges existed in the high court for which the chief justice, after consulting other judges and scrutinising the credentials of numerous candidates, recommended the names of the three petitioners and three lawyers for appointment as additional judges for a period of one year.

They said the JCP in its meeting on Jan 5, 2022, re-examined the said nominations and after a threadbare discussion recommended all the said six names including that of the three petitioners, with the majority of 10 to 2 with one member abstaining for appointment as additional judges.

Published in Dawn, February 18th, 2022