The Islamabad High Court (IHC) has turned down Justice Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri’s objections on a division bench, led by Chief Justice Sardar Muhammad Sarfraz Dogar, hearing challenges to the legitimacy of his law degree and appointment as a judge, it emerged on Tuesday.
The objections were raised by Justice Jahangiri, also an IHC judge, during the hearing of the petition challenging his qualification on Monday, with CJ Dogar and Justice Muhammad Azam Khan presiding over the proceedings.
The bench comprising Justices Dogar and Khan previously also barred Justice Jahangiri from judicial work in September in the case, but the order was later set aside by the Supreme Court (SC).
Justice Jahangiri appeared in person before the bench yesterday and presented his arguments.
A court order issued after the hearing, seen by Dawn, said he had raised preliminary objections on the constitution of a division bench instead of a single bench to hear lawyer Mian Dawood’s petition.
Moreover, Justice Jahangiri “expressed his no confidence” in the bench on the ground of filing of an intra-court appeal against CJ Dogar in the SC, the order stated.
The court, however, observed that “on the administrative side, keeping in view the sensitive nature of allegations of having an invalid/ fake degree having been levelled against a sitting judge of this court, it was deemed conducive, proper and in the fitness of things to constitute a division bench to hear this case instead of a single bench”.
It further said, “Even otherwise, the constitution of benches to hear cases, is the sole prerogative of the chief justice.”
The court also noted that “it is not a first instance of this kind wherein the division bench has been constituted to hear a certain petition”.
Based on these observations, the court turned down Justice Jahangiri’s objection to the constitution of the division bench to hear the case for “having no force”.
On Justice Jahangiri expressing a lack of confidence in CJ Dogar on the basis of an appeal filed against the latter in the SC, the court observed that the plea had been dismissed by the Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) on November 24.
In July, Justice Jahagiri, along with four other IHC judges, filed an intra-court appeal against the SC’s constitutional bench decision of upholding the seniority of the IHC that raised Justice Dogar to the top.
The five judges requested the SC not to consider Justices Sardar Mohammad Sarfraz Dogar, Khadim Hussain Soomro and Mohammad Asif as judges of IHC until they took fresh oaths in accordance with Article 194.
The intra-court appeal was fixed before the FCC following its establishment under the 27th Constitutional Amendment and eventually dismissed for non-prosecution.
Highlighting the plea’s dismissal in its order for Monday’s hearing, the IHC also cited various previous SC orders.
It noted that in the case Asif Ali Zardari vs The State (PLD 2001 SC 568), the SC had upheld that the “judge of a superior court is a keeper of his own conscience and it is for him to decide whether to hear or not to hear a matter before him”.
