ISLAMABAD: Former Supreme Court Chief Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar on Saturday filed a civil miscellaneous application with the Supreme Court, demanding recusal of two more members of the reconstituted four-member bench seized with hearing of contempt of court issue.
Filed through his lawyer, Ahmed Raza Kasuri, the former SC judge pleaded that he had recommended the names of Justice Khilji Arif Hussain and Justice Tariq Parvez, members of the larger bench, as head of the superior judiciary under Article 193 of the constitution. Subsequently, he added they could not hear contempt cases as they were sworn in by him as judge of the Sindh High Court and chief justice of the Peshawar High Court respectively.
He said Justice Nasirul Mulk, Justice Raja Fayyaz Ahmed and Justice Muhammad Sair Ali had already recused themselves from hearing of the instant matter after certain objections were raised over them. “When these judges took oath of their respective offices, they knew that the applicant took oath under the PCO on November 3, 2007.”
“Propriety demands that both these honourable judges kindly recuse themselves and step down from the bench in the interest of justice and fair play, so that the requirements of Article 10A of the constitution are fully met which is now a fundamental right guaranteed to a citizen,” he contended.
Justice Hamid Ali Shah, Justice Hasnat Ahmed Khan and Justice Shabbar Raza Rizvi, dysfunctional judges of the Lahore High Court and Justice Jehanzaib Rahim, dysfunctional judge of the Peshawar High Court, who had taken oath under the annulled Provisional Constitutional Order 2007 in violation of a restraining order, had already moved pleas objecting to the presence of Justice Mahmood Akhtar Shahid Siddiqui, Justice Jawwad S Khawja and Justice Tariq Parvez.
They said the guarantee given to every citizen to be tried fairly under Article 10A could not be possible as long as these judges remained on the bench. They said the contempt proceedings were initiated against the sitting as well as retired chief justices and judges of the superior courts which was unconstitutional, illegal and discriminatory and that too by a bench against whom the appellants had already shown their mistrust on the basis of sound and un-rebutted material.
The bench is set to resume hearing the matter of contempt of court on Monday.
