Supreme Judicial Council to hear IHC judge’s defence today
ISLAMABAD: A five-member dais of a Supreme Court will hear currently a petition filed by Islamabad High Court Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui seeking to stay bungle record opposite him.
The five-member dais comprising Justice Gulzar Ahmed, Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed, Justice Dost Muhammad Khan, Justice Ijazul Ahsan and Justice Sajjad Ali Shah has been constituted to hear into a box of a IHC judge, who is indicted of bungle yet seeks an open conference after a Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) had motionless to try him in-camera.
Through his petition, Justice Siddiqui has lifted a elemental doubt that there is no prescribed procession accessible to control an exploration or reason conference of a decider belonging to a higher judiciary. The accessible procedure, he insists, was introduced though any charge from a Constitution or any other statute.
The dais will hear Justice Siddiqui’s focus seeking a stay of a SJC’s record opposite him.
Presently, yet Justice Siddiqui hurdles his in-camera trial, he does not find the quashment of his reference. He wants an open trial.
Justice Siddiqui’s box was formerly listened on Nov 2 by a two-member dais comprising Justice Saeed and Justice Qazi Faez Isa. The dais had referred a matter to Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar for a arrangement of a incomparable dais for hearing.
Justice Siddiqui had not usually questioned a legality of a SJC’s procedures yet found it in defilement of Article 10A of a Constitution for denying an open and pure trial.
He pronounced that he had a elemental right to insist that an exploration into his control be conducted publicly.
In his petition, Justice Siddiqui referred to a SJC’s observation, “It is on comment of a sanctification of a establishment and a grace of a applicant and other judges whose matters are inquired by a SJC that in-camera record are expedient…. It is in a incomparable seductiveness of a law that a record are not conducted in open court, as a issues brought before a SJC and claim leveled might eventually be valid to be false, whimsical and vexatious.”
In response to a above SJC’s observation, Justice Siddiqui not usually quoted past SC judgments yet also referred to a box of former CJP Justice (retd) Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who in 2007 successfully challenged a SJC’s record and got an open trial.
He added, “The sanctification of no establishment is stable by creation a isolated virtue. There is no larger insurance than giveaway debate and a giveaway press for a autonomy of inherent institutions.”
In response to SJC’s regard that open conference might harm a grace of a petitioner, he said, “The postulant has zero to hide, his grace is not compromised if a record are hold in a open.” He added, “It is not in a interests of a law if a record are hold in-camera. It will repairs a picture of a institution. The really guardians of probity can't repudiate their brethren a insurance of a open conference and due process.”
He added, “Due routine of law compulsory that a chairman be given a reasonable event to urge himself. This is not guaranteed in a tip trial.”
The IHC decider also reminded a peak probity of a past visualisation in that it was observed, “Keeping in perspective a argumentative credentials of a benefaction case, unnecessary to discuss here, that open conference inspires open certainty in a authorised routine while in-camera record give arise to suspicions and misgivings in a mind of common man….”
Justice Siddiqui also forked out a benefaction burden routine for a judges did not enclose any sustenance of interest or revision. He noted, “The exploration conducted by a SJC and a finish it reaches once it completes this exploration culminates in news to a president. This news is possibly inauspicious or favourable. If it is favourable, a record end. If it is adverse, it formula in a judge’s dismissal from his inherent office. A disastrous news not usually strips a decider of bureau and pensionary rights and advantages yet also tars his repute forever.”
He added, “Second, no appeal, rider or examination lies opposite an inauspicious report. A decider adversely influenced if left though a remedy. The boss plays no effective purpose in a matter. He can conjunction lay in interest over a inauspicious news nor can follow it.”
He pronounced that such a rejection of interest or rider is both unconstitutional and un-Islamic.
Questioning a SJC’s procedure, he said, “The procession supposing in a Supreme Judicial Council Procedures of Inquiry, 2005 thereto speaks for itself. A SCN (show means notice) is released to a judge. The decider responds to it and a SJC convenes a meeting. It issues notice to a AGP or in his deficiency a comparison warn who becomes a prosecutor opposite a judge. Evidence is led. Witnesses are summoned. They are examined and cross-examined. It is, therefore, submitted that a record before a SJC despite named exploration are in fact a trial.”
He combined that a Constitution has not postulated a SJC a powers to emanate a procession for a conduct. “No law provides it this power. The SJC Procedure of Inquiry, 2005 is combined by a SJC. It has conjunction any inherent nor orthodox cover.”
He pronounced that a SJC procession is ultra vires a Constitution in so distant as it violates a simple elemental rights of a petitioner.
Some other authorised experts also have reservations about a operative of a SJC.
Originally published in
The News