ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Monday returned the constitutional petitions filed by five judges of the Islamabad High Court (IHC), raising objections that the applications were based on personal grievances and did not meet the requirements of Article 184(3) of the Constitution.
The IHC five judges – Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani, Justice Tariq Mahmood Jahangiri, Justice Babar Sattar, Justice Sardar Ejaz Ishaq Khan, and Justice Saman Raffat Imtiaz – on September 19, appeared in person and filed separate petitions, but the subject and substance in all the petitions are the same. They alleged, “Chief Justice of the IHC Sardar Muhammad Sarfraz Dogar has opted to assume powers to transform the Chief Justice’s office into a monocracy.”
The sources said that the Supreme Court Registrar’s office raised the objections that the petitions appeared to be motivated by personal grievances rather than issues of public interest.
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The Registrar noted that the petitions did not identify any clear matter of public interest or specify which fundamental rights were being violated to justify invoking Article 184(3) of the Constitution. Instead, the objections suggested that the petitions were driven by personal grievances.
Referring to precedent from the Zulfiqar Mehdi vs. PIA case, the Registrar Office emphasised that constitutional petitions under Article 184(3) cannot be based on personal disputes. It further pointed out that the petitions lacked key elements of a valid constitutional application, including clarity on the parties to be notified.
The petitioner judges wrote in their petition, “They find it loathsome to do institutional laundry in public, but are out of options. They have no other remedy but to transform themselves into litigants and publicly seek remedies from the Supreme Court.”
“They have engaged in intra-institutional consultation informally; they have indulged in formal correspondence and letter-writing; and they have met successive Chief Justices and sought their indulgence. But to no avail,” added the petition.
They stated that Chief Justice Dogar, from the date of assuming charge as the Chief Justice, has consistently used administrative powers in violation of settled principles of comity of judges and judicial independence to render the Petitioner judges, who challenged his transfer and seniority, dysfunctional. The Chief Justice, in complete disregard of the settled law by the Supreme Court, has repeatedly used administrative powers (i) to restrict some of the Petitioner judges from exercising their judicial functions and powers and (ii) to interfere with the discharge of their judicial functions.
“Under Chief Justice Dogar’s watch, the office has refused to issue cause lists in breach of judicial orders and has transferred partly-heard matters from the docket of one court to another without such powers vesting in the Chief Justice. Chief Justice Dogar has used his administrative power to reconstitute benches and transfer cases being adjudicated from the bench seized of them to another.”
“Chief Justice Dogar continues to use his power to issue the roster of sitting judges to render senior judges dysfunctional. Chief Justice Dogar has constituted divisional benches headed by junior judges and has relieved senior judges of such responsibility, including the Senior Puisne judge, who is no longer part of any divisional bench,” said the petition.
The petitioner judges prayed to the Supreme Court to declare that administrative powers could not be “deployed to undermine or trump the judicial powers” of the high court judges.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025