The Supreme Court (SC) on Tuesday declared Islamabad High Court’s (IHC) Sept 16 decision to bar Justice Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri from judicial work “null and void”, a day after the apex court ordered the decision’s suspension.
Yesterday, the court adjourned the hearing to September 30 (today) and issued notices to all the respondents, as well as the Attorney General of Pakistan (AGP) Mansoor Usman Awan, to appear before the court.
On September 16, the IHC had restrained Justice Jahangiri from exercising his judicial powers as a two-judge bench issued the interim order while hearing a writ petition filed under Article 199 of the Constitution. Justice Jahangiri then challenged the decision in the SC, pleading for the restraining order to be set aside.
The matter centres on a letter that began circulating last year on social media, purportedly from the University of Karachi’s controller of examinations, regarding the judge’s law degree.
Resuming the hearing today, the five-member Constitutional Bench — headed by Justice Aminuddin Khan and comprising Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail, Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar, Justice Hassan Azhar Rizvi and Justice Shahid Bilal Hassan — took up Justice Jahangiri’s petition.
AGP Awan appeared before the court and said, “A judge cannot be barred from judicial work through an interim order.“
At this, Justice Aminuddin asked respondent Mian Daud, who had filed the original petition against Justice Jahangiri, for his opinion. In response, Daud said: “I hold the same opinion — a judge cannot be stopped from judicial work.”
He added that “an order barring a judge from their duties can not be defended.”
Noting the AGP’s statement and that of other relevant parties, Justice Aminuddin set aside the IHC order, ruling that a judge can not be stopped from carrying out judicial duties.
The CB, while referring to the SC registrar’s office objections regarding the petition against Justice Jahangiri in the IHC, directed the court to “first decide on the objections in the writ petition.”
During the hearing, the matter of the maintainability of the writ petition came under discussion as Justice Jahangiri’s legal counsel, Munir Malik, addressed the court and said, “according to yesterday’s court order, it was written that the writ is maintainable, but in my opinion, only the SJC can take action against a judge.”
At yesterday’s hearing, the CB had made it clear that it would only examine the Sept 16 restraining order and not the main petition questioning Justice Jahangiri’s degree.
“No one should be under the impression that we have accepted the high court’s jurisdiction to hear the writ petition,” he added, referring to the Malik Asad Ali case.
To this, Justice Aminuddin responded: “We have written in the order only the language that is present in the Malik Asad Ali case.”
In his remarks, Justice Mandokhel said, “We have only maintained that a judge may only be removed by the SJC.”
Justice Mazhar asserted that, “We are not touching on the question of the maintainability of the writ of quo warranto. Whether it merited a hearing in a high court is up to the relevant high court to decide.
“The only question before us is whether a judge can be prevented from working through an interim order,” he said, stressing that the CB at the moment “will not address the question of whether a writ petition can be filed against a judge.”
“Both the Supreme Court and High Court judges are not office holders, Justice Mandokhel observed, but then went on to say that “all of these things can be discussed when the case is heard on merit.”
“We do not want to go on merit in the present case,” he said.
On Monday, the SC suspended the order issued by the IHC barring Justice Jahangiri from carrying out judicial duties in a case pertaining to his law degree allegedly being fake.
According to the court order, a copy of which is available with Dawn.com, the bench ruled that the “operation of the impugned order is suspended”.
Meanwhile, the Sindh High Court (SHC) is set to hear a petition filed by Justice Jahangiri today, challenging the cancellation of his law degree.
Justice Jahangiri has impugned the decisions of University of Karachi’s Unfair Means Committee (UMC) and Syndicate, which cancelled his degree in August last year.
The IHC judge recently approached the SHC, but at the time of filing, the court’s additional registrar (writ) raised several objections, including questions about the maintainability of the petition and the delay in filing it.
Fake degree controversy
The controversy began with a letter that was circulated on social media last year, purportedly from the KU’s examinations, regarding the validity of Justice Jahangiri’s law degree, leading to the subsequent filing of a reference with the SJC.
The letter was reportedly a response from KU to an application seeking information under the Sindh Transparency Right to Information Act, 2016.
It stated that candidate Tariq Mehmood obtained his LLB degree in 1991 under enrolment number 5968. However, Imtiaz Ahmed enrolled in 1987 under the same enrolment number, while the transcript for LLB Part I was issued under the name Tariq Jahangiri.
Moreover, Tariq Mehmood enrolled for LLB Part I under enrolment number 7124. The letter did not declare the degree bogus but termed it invalid, explaining that the university issues one enrolment number for the entire degree programme, making it impossible for a student to have two enrolment numbers for one programme.
On July 10, 2024, IHC ruled that the “scurrilous campaign” aimed to malign the judge amounted to an attempt to bring the “Court into hatred, ridicule and disrespect and, prima facie, qualifies as contempt of Court.”
As the degree accusations came to light, Daud filed a writ petition, requesting the court to stop Justice Jahangiri from exercising judicial powers till the verification of his LLB degree. The then-IHC CJ Aamer Farooq heard the petition filed by the lawyer.
At the time, the SC registrar’s office also had raised objections to the petition on grounds that Daud was not an aggrieved person and the matter was already pending before the SJC.
On September 1, 2024, the syndicate of KU cancelled Justice Jahangiri’s degree and enrollment, on the recommendation of its UFM Committee, varsity officials said.
The decision came a few hours after the detention of academic and syndicate member Riaz Ahmed, who was picked up by police in what appeared to be an attempt to stop him from attending the key meeting. He was released in the evening only after the syndicate decided to cancel the degree.
Then, on Sept 5 2024, the SHC suspended KU’s decision to revoke the law degree of Justice Jahangiri, after a petition against KU’s cancellation was filed. The court found that the university’s syndicate had taken the action in Justice Jahangiri’s absence, depriving him of the opportunity to defend himself.
To this, KU responded that the unfair means committee and the syndicate were of the opinion that there was enough evidence against the judge, and deemed it appropriate not to hear him in person.
On Sept 16, the IHC took up the matter and a two-member bench led by IHC CJ Dogar and comprising Justice Mohammad Azam Khan, barred Justice Jahangiri from carrying out judicial work until the SJC decision on the matter of his allegedly fake degree, which Justice Jahangiri appealed against in the SC.
Separately, on Sept 25, a two-judge SHC bench declined to entertain the plea of Justice Jahangiri to become a party in proceedings on petitions, challenging the cancellation of his law degree.