ISLAMABAD: In order to address the grievances of ‘disgruntled’ judges of the sessions court in the federal capital, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) has constituted a committee comprising Justice Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri and Justice Saman Rafat Imtiaz.

According to an order issued by the Registrar’s Office, the IHC administration on the direction of Chief Justice Aamer Farooq constituted the committee “to examine the representations of the judicial officers of Islamabad Judicial Service, against adverse remarks in Annual Confidential Reports/Performance Evaluation Reports”.

The committee would place its recommendations before the CJ after listening to the complaints of the judges working in lower courts.

Furthermore, a few judges of the sessions courts have also filed representations over adverse evaluation in their ACRs due to which they have been superseded. They contended in the departmental representations that they have been “unjustly denied promotions” and accused the Departmental Promotion Committee (DPC) of “wrong evaluation of their performance”.

It may be noted here that getting a promotion in the capital’s subordinate judiciary is an uphill task, as at least four judges have resigned in a couple of years seeing no future prospects. Civil judges Imran Sikandari, Sabihul Hassan, Saqib Bhatti, and Shaukat Rehman Khan are among these judges.

District court judges complain of supersession, poor working conditions; IHC official says courts to shift to new judicial complex within few weeks

Mr Rehman, who was fed up with his “challenging but unrewarding job” tried to go to the UK for higher studies but his leave application was rejected. He was initially granted a no-objection certificate but the competent authority subsequently rejected his leave application over his failure to “produce any proof of fee deposit with a UK-based educational institution”.

Talking to Dawn, Mr Rehman said he had received an offer letter from a UK varsity and he was all set to deposit the fee following the approval of his application for the leave. He added that there were others factors as well that led him to quit his demanding job. According to the former judge, like several other judges of the subordinate judiciary, he did not see any hope in continuing his career as a civil judge.

A few judges whom Dawn spoke to said they were working in an “unhygienic and uncongenial environment for several years” in the absence of a proper judicial complex for the district courts. The situation in which the capital judges are working could best be explained as “makeshift arrangements”, they added.

Except for a handful of judges, the rest are conducting proceedings in tiny shops. There is not even the basic facility of a washroom – even for women judges – in their respective chambers. But the worst thing, according to these judges, is supersession. Amid these conditions, some serving judges are also planning to resign because after rendering service for over one-and-half decade, they still could not get a promotion.

Inamullah Khan, Muhammad Abbas Shah, and Ihtisham Alam Swati, the civil judges who were inducted into the judicial service in 2006 in BS-17, said after 17 years of service, they were still in the same grade.

Similarly, there are other civil judges who have completed over a decade in the judicial service but have not been promoted to the next grade. They include Mubashir Chishti, Omar Shabbir, Shoaib Akhtar, Malik Aman Shehzad Khan, Sohaib Bilal Ranjha, Sanam Bukhari, Ambreen Chaudhry and Rafat Mehmood.

A senior official of the IHC told Dawn that the incumbent CJ has taken notice of the grievances of the civil judges and constituted a committee over the issue. He further said that the District Courts Complex has also been completed and is being renovated. The judges would get a “congenial working environment with the shifting of the [district] courts to the new premises in a few weeks”.

Published in Dawn, January 17th, 2023