Dismissing the intra-court appeals of the judges who took oath under the Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO), the Supreme Court said on Wednesday that all the serving PCO judges had ceased to hold their offices from April 20, 2010 – the day the 18th Amendment was passed.
Announcing its detailed judgement on the intra-court appeals of PCO judges, a six-member larger bench of the SC headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry held that all the PCO judges ceased to hold their offices after the passage of the 18th Amendment, since the November 3, 2007 actions of former president Pervez Musharraf were declared unconstitutional by the apex court on July 31, 2009 and were later also invalidated by parliament in the 18th Amendment.
The court also told the law secretary to issue notifications to that effect. The court stated, however, that the PCO judges would be entitled to pensions up to April 20, 2010. It said since the judges who had filed the appeals were no longer judges, and because there would be contempt of court proceedings against them under Article 204 of the constitution if ultimately they were found to be guilty of the offence, all the perks and privileges received by them during the last year had to be returned, and any future cases for the recovery of their pensions would be dealt with accordingly.
The verdict said that since the petitioners and other PCO judges were no longer judges of the high courts, they could not claim immunity for holding their trial for contempt of court under Article 204 of the constitution, read with relevant laws. It said the cases for contempt of court against the petitioners would be placed before the bench concerned for further proceedings. It said the judges in question had committed contempt of court by taking oath under the PCO of November 3, 2007 promulgated by Musharraf.
The PCO judges had filed intra-court appeals in the SC against its February 2, 2011 verdict against them. The court had reserved its verdict on April 4. The intra-court appeals were filed by six PCO judges, namely Justice Yasmin Abbasi of the Sindh High Court, Justice Shabbar Raza Rizvi, Justice Hasnat Ahmad Khan, Justice Hamid Ali Shah, Justice Sajjad Hussain Shah of the Lahore High Court and Justice Jahanzeb Rahim of the Peshawar High Court.
