- The transfer of all three judges also declared permanent; Law Ministry issues revised seniority list
ISLAMABAD: President Asif Ali Zardari on Sunday declared Justice Sarfaraz Dogar as the “senior-most judge” of the Islamabad High Court (IHC) and the Ministry of Law and Justice issued a fresh seniority list of the judge.
Additionally, the president also declared that the status of the transfer of all three judges would be permanent.
According to the latest seniority list, Justice Dogar was designated as the most senior judge of the IHC, while the two other judges, Justice Soomro and Justice Asif, were ranked 9th and 11th, respectively.
The development follows the Supreme Court’s verdict on June 19, declaring the transfer of IHC judges constitutional and referring the matter of seniority to be determined by the president. Earlier this year, the law ministry’s transfer of three judges to the IHC had disrupted the seniority list.
On Friday, however, five judges of the IHC challenged the SC’s decision to uphold the transfer of three judges—Justice Sardar Dogar from the Lahore High Court (LHC), Justice Khadim Hussain Soomro from the Sindh High Court (SHC), and Justice Muhammad Asif from the Balochistan High Court (BHC).
The controversy had begun on Feb 20 when five IHC judges—Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani, Justice Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri, Justice Babar Sattar, Justice Sardar Ejaz Ishaq Khan and Justice Saman Rafat Imtiaz—had filed a representation, contending that under the Constitution, a high court judge must take a new oath upon transfer to a different high court, which should affect their seniority ranking.
According to the petition, the inter se seniority of the transferred judges should be determined from the date they took oath as justices of the IHC. Consequently, they should be placed lower in the seniority list than the petitioner judges.
The five judges also did not attend Justice Dogar’s oath-taking ceremony as the acting IHC chief justice.
