ISLAMABAD: The Departmental Promotion Committee is all set to meet today to consider the elevation of at least eight additional district and sessions judges (ADSJ) against the three available posts of district and sessions judges (DSJ) in Islamabad’s district courts.

The much-awaited meeting of the DPC will be chaired by Islamabad High Court senior puisne judge Mohsin Akhtar Kayani with Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb also a part of the committee.

Sources in the judicial bureaucracy told Dawn that the panel of ADSJs to be considered for the posts of DSJs included Sikandar Khan, Mohammad Adnan, Abida Sajjad, Zeba Chaudhry, Raja Asif Mehmood, Syed Faizan Haider Gillani, Abdul Ghafoor, Mohammad Sohail, and Jehangir Awan.

Mr Awan is currently an officer on special duty (OSD). He was dismissed from the service on the order of then-chief justice of the Islamabad High Court, Justice Athar Minallah, over a scuffle with Chaudhary Khurram, the husband of a former PTI lawmaker in the Punjab Assembly, Abida Raja.

The minor road rage incident in Red Zone on Sept 13, 2020, escalated after Chaudhry Khurram slapped the judge. Judge Awan later rushed to his car and used his handgun to fire in the air.

However, he was reinstated by the IHC Judicial Tribunal headed by Justice Kayani in July last year. Besides DSJs, the DPC will also consider five senior civil judges, namely Amir Aziz Khan, Nasrumminallah, Mohammad Shabbir Bhatti, Qudratullah, and Mujahid Rahim, for their promotion as the ADSJ.

Stalled promotions

Promotions of scores of the ADSJs, SCJs and civil judges have been stalled for years, diminishing the career prospects of many a judge. Getting a promotion in the capital’s subordinate judiciary is considered an uphill task, and at least four judges resigned a couple of years ago for the same reason.

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.

Previously, a handful of judicial officers were promoted; however, the judges have complained that they belonged to certain chambers of lawyers during the practice. About two dozen judges of the Islamabad judiciary filed representations against their adverse performance evaluation reports before the IHC chief justice.

A few of them have also challenged their supersession before the service tribunal.

IHC Chief Justice Aamer Farooq had constituted a two-member committee DPC to consider promotions of the district judiciary.

Published in Dawn, June 25th, 2024