CJP urged to order probe into complaints against judges

ISLAMABAD: One of the complainants before the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) that led to the unceremonious exit of Sayyed Mazahar Ali Akbar Naqvi as the Supreme Court judge requested Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faez Isa on Monday to initiate prompt inquiry into the pending complaints against superior court judges.

“The people as well as lawyers of this country consider it their right in expecting that CJP being the SJC chairman will fix all the complaints, pending against different judges within a period of one month,” Advocate Mian Dawood stated in a letter addressed to the chief justice.

The letter highlighted that CJP Isa on Jan 21 claimed to have sought opinion on complaints against as many as 100 superior court judges pending before the SJC for quite some time. While the chief justice had not named anyone, he had forwarded the complaints on misconduct to senior SJC members to consider the same and render their opinion. He was then speaking at the Second Law-Bridge Workshop on Superior Court Reporting, organised at the Asma Jehangir Auditorium.

It pointed out that not a single complaint had been fixed for hearing before the SJC for the past four months.

The lawyer wrote that a malicious and vilification campaign had been initiated with an ulterior motive to keep the CJP and other SJC members preoccupied in trivial matters and non-issues to keep them from focusing on the pending complaints against the judges. Such vested interests are trying their level best to delay SJC proceedings until the chief justice reaches superannuation on Oct 25, 2024.

According to the SJC Procedure of Enquiry Rules, 2005, when a complaint or information is received by the SJC, it is referred to a council member before initiating any formal proceedings to ascertain whether it was a fit case to be proceeded against.

Under Section 7 of the Rules 2005, once any information in respect of enquiry into the conduct of a judge is received by any council member, it is presented to the SJC chairman, who then refers the same to any member of the council to look into the said information; and to express his opinion in relation to the sufficiency or otherwise of the information; (b) if the council is satisfied that the information prima facie discloses sufficient material for an enquiry, it shall proceed to consider the same.

According to the rules, the member, to whom the chairman has referred the information, examines the same and ascertains if the information so received discloses specific particulars of misconduct, and provides factual details necessary to form, prima facie, opinion in respect of the guilt of the judge.