Former Judge of the Islamabad High Court (IHC) Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui has submitted an application in the Supreme Court, making request to resume the hearing of his appeal on November 15.
It is to be noted that, the former IHC judge had submitted the appeal against an opinion of the Supreme Court Judicial Commission (SJC), and on October 11, 2018, notification under which he was removed as the superior court judge for his speech at the District Bar Association, Rawalpindi, in July 2018.
Notably, Justice Siddiqui had levelled allegations against the involvement of officers of the executive organ of the state, mainly the ISI, in the judiciary’s affairs just to manipulate the formation of the benches of the high court.
Former Judge Siddiqui, who was retired as a judge of the high court in June 2021, in a single-page application said, “The petitioner’s several legal, fundamental as well as constitutional rights are involved in the case. It is, therefore, most respectfully prayed that the constitutional petition may kindly be fixed for hearing on Nov 15 or any date in the week commencing from Nov 13.”
It is to be added that, similar applications for an early hearing of the case were moved by the petitioned in the past over numerous times.
In the fresh application filed, Justice Siddiqui said that the matters was of public significance since the petition had raised important questions like the judiciary’s independence, the rule of law and the supremacy of the Constitution.
The former judge in the original petition had made a request to court to check or regulate the discertion available to the chief justices of all the superior courts for constituting or dissolving the benches and to assign cases or issue case rosters.
But the petitioner contended that the chief justice of a court can exercise discretion in these matters only after “meaningful consultations” with the four most senior judges of the court concerned and in accordance with the certain “settled and defined criteria.”
