The National Judicial Commission headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry on Saturday recommended the confirmation of 14 of 17 additional judges of the Lahore High Court (LHC) and four additional judges of the Balochistan High Court (BHC) to the parliamentary committee. The commission also proposed the induction of 10 new additional judges in the LHC and three additional judges in the BHC. Six of the ten nominees for LHC are sessions’ judges, while four are lawyers. The sessions’ judges are Abdul Waheed, Kazim Shamsi, Ijaz Shah, Mehmood Maqbool Bajwa, Muhammad Younis and Abdul Sattar Asghar, while the nominated lawyers are Shahzad Ghaba, Ameer Bhatti, Altaf Ibrahim and Aminud Din.
Likewise, the three candidates for the slot of BHC additional judges are Qadir Mengal, Naeem Akhtar and Hashi Kakar. The previous meeting was held on April 17 but was postponed as the law minister-designate Maula Bukhsh Chandio had not been sworn in. The NJC had been scheduled to take up the matter of extension in the appointments of 21 additional judges of Balochistan and Lahore High Courts. The matter is now likely to be taken up in the next meeting.
