Complaint seeks ouster of Chief Justice of Pakistan, 3 other judges

Islamabad : A complaint against four Pakistan Supreme Court (SC) judges including Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial was filed on Monday at the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) seeking their removal from office, media reports said.

In addition to the CJP Bandial, Justice Munib Akhtar, Justice Ijazul Ahsan and Justice Mazhar Ali Naqvi have been named in the complaint, Express Tribune reported.

The complainant, Advocate Sardar Salman Ahmad Dogar, maintained that all four judges were guilty of misconduct and “consistently acted in violation of Article 209 of the Constitution”.

“The respected CJ Bandial has engaged in judicial and administrative misconduct, as a head of the bench hearing a provincial election case, and as Chairperson of the SJC by refusing to probe allegations against the respected Justice Naqvi, and also by announcing in open court that he was giving a ‘silent message’, by including Justice Naqvi on the bench with him, instead of initiating proceedings against the judge,” the application stated, Express Tribune reported.

Advocate Dogar then went on to detail the allegations against Justice Naqvi referring to the series of controversial audio leaks involving former Punjab Chief Minister and new PTI member Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, the judge himself and his principal secretary as well as the audio clips relating to the case of CCPO Lahore.

Notably, the complaint pointed out that the latter case was pending before Justice Naqvi and Justice Ahsan when “in the same case, which being a service matter, both the said Justice started proceeding with regards to the elections to the Punjab Assembly” and later “referred the matters to the CJP for invocation of suo motu notice”.