Five Islamabad High Court (IHC) judges — namely Justices Mohsin Akhtar Kayani, Babar Sattar, Tariq Mahmood Jahangiri, Saman Rafat Imtiaz and Sardar Ejaz Ishaq Khan — submitted separate petitions at the Supreme Court (SC) together on Friday against a number of issues affecting the court recently, from the composition of benches to rosters to case transfers.
The petitions, available with Dawn.com, named the IHC, IHC Chief Justice Sardar Muhammad Sarfraz Dogar and the Federation of Pakistan as respondents and were filed under Article 184(3) of the Constitution.
Article 184(3) sets out the SC’s original jurisdiction and enables it to assume jurisdiction in matters involving a question of “public importance” with reference to the “enforcement of any of the fundamental rights” of Pakistan’s citizens.
In their petitions, the judges moved the SC to declare that administrative powers could not be “deployed to undermine or trump the judicial powers” of the high court judges.
They further asked the apex court to declare that a chief justice of the high court was “not authorised to constitute benches or transfer cases” once a high court bench had been assigned a case.
Moreover, the petitions sought the declaration that the chief justice of a high court “cannot exclude available judges from the roster, at will, and use the power to issue a roster to oust judges from performing judicial functions”.
The SC was also urged to declare “that the constitution of benches, transfer of cases and issuance of roster can only be done in accordance with the rules adopted by the entirety of the High Court under Article 202 (rules of procedure), read with Article 192(1) (constitution of high court) of the Constitution”.
The petitioners also asked the apex court to declare that the “decision-making” with respect to the constitution of benches, issuance of roster and transfer of cases could not “solely rest in the hands of the chief justice”.
“Declare that the ‘Doctrine of the Master of the Roster’ has definitely been set aside in Supreme Court decisions,” the petitions read.
The petitions further sought the declaration that formation of IHC’s administration committees through notifications dated February 3 and July 15 and all the actions taken by them “suffer from mala fide in law and are illegal”. They asked the court to set aside these notifications and all actions taken by the administration committees constituted under them for “being illegal and coram non judice”.
Moreover, they stated: “Declare that the adoption and approval of Islamabad High Court Practice and Procedure Rules, 2025, by the illegally constituted administration committee, and its notification without prior approval of the high court is in breach of Article 192(1) and Article 202 of the Constitution, and its subsequent endorsement in September, are illegal and of no legal effect.”
The judges further stated in their prayers that the SC “direct the IHC to provide effective supervision and oversight” over the functioning of the district judiciary, as mandated by the Constitution under Article 203, which states that each high court shall supervise and control all courts subordinate to it.
The petitioner asked the SC to “declare that a high court cannot issue a writ under Article 199 of the Constitution to itself.” Article 199 pertains to the jurisdiction of a high court.
They continued: “A Division Bench of high court is neither vested with jurisdiction to sit in appeal over interlocutory orders of a single bench nor can assume control over the proceedings of a single bench as if it is an inferior court or tribunal.”
An interlocutory order refers to a temporary judgment passed in an ongoing case.
The petitioners requested the SC to declare that a high court judge can only be “restrained from working from performing judicial duties under Article 209 and a writ of quo warranto seeking the removal of a judge from office is not maintainable.”
