Re: A black day for Pakistan…
Wrong. There are no less than 23 references filed against the superior judges in the SJC. Yet not one has been addressed under the chairmanship of Iftikhar Chaudhury, yet he gets time to summon newspaper editors to his chambers to warn them off printing stories about his son.
**23 complaints pending with SJC for years
Ahead of Presidential reference against the Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, there are in the queue 23 complaints pending for a hearing with the Supreme Judicial Council against several other judges but no action has so far been taken, The Nation has learnt. These complaints include serious charges against several senior judges of the High Courts, the sources revealed to The Nation. One sixth of these complaints are against one individual judge. Some of these complaints, which range from corruption to misconduct, are pending adjudication for the last several years. Habib Wahab-ul-Khairi, a senior lawyer and one of the complainants, said the fate of complaints filed before the presidential reference, must be adjudicated ahead of the charges against Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. “If there is any justice, we must get it ahead of Pervez Musharraf or any other complainant because we have been waiting for a hearing for the last many years,” Khairi, who was the mover of famous Al-Jihad Case, demanded. The Al-Jihad case had set the principle that the senior most judge would be the Chief Justice if the office falls vacant. “If a Supreme Judicial Council meeting can be summoned within days after receiving complaint against one judge, why the others are getting the advantage of inordinate delay, Khairi said.“The Acting Chief Justice should also ensure that no such judge should be included in the Supreme Judicial Council, who himself stands accused of any wrongdoing,”** Khairi demanded. Another senior apex court lawyer, Hafiz Abdul Rehman Ansari is also among the list of complainants in the Supreme Judicial Council with his grievance against a judge. Munir A Malik, President Supreme Court Bar Association, (SCBA) also confirmed that there are a number of complaints against some judges pending with the Supreme Judicial Council for the last many years. Under the rules of procedure, the fate of these grievances must be decided prior to that which is targeting Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhamad Chaudhry, he added.