Justice Sardar Ejaz Ishaq of the Islamabad High Court (IHC) initiated contempt proceedings on Wednesday after discovering that a case under his jurisdiction \u2014 concerning ex-premier Imran Khan\u2019s right to meet with his lawyer \u2014 had been transferred to a larger bench without his knowledge or consent.<\/p>\n
The IHC administration had yesterday constituted a three-member larger bench \u2014 headed by newly appointed Acting Chief Justice Sardar Sarfraz Dogar \u2014 to hear all 26 petitions related to the visitation rights and jail conditions of Imran.<\/p>\n
As the orders in one such petition were not followed, Imran\u2019s lawyer Mashal Yousufzai sought contempt proceedings against Adiala Jail Superintendent Abdul Ghafoor Anjum. The case was heard last week by Justice Ishaq.<\/p>\n
However, the cause list for the case presided by Justice Ishaq \u2014 set to resume on March 21 \u2014 was cancelled by the IHC registrar\u2019s office due to the larger bench\u2019s formation, it emerged during a hearing today.<\/p>\n
Yousufzai, her counsel Advocate Shoaib Shaheen and Imran\u2019s spokesperson Niazullah Khan Niazi appeared before the court.<\/p>\n
In a separate development, the petitions clubbed together were fixed for hearing before the larger bench for tomorrow.<\/p>\n
The bench, led by Justice Dogar and including Justices Arbab Muhammad Tahir and Muhammad Azam Khan, will hear the pleas, which include Yousufzai\u2019s contempt case.<\/p>\n
All 26 petitions \u2014 including contempt of court applications against Anjum \u2014 were transferred to the larger bench on the Adiala Jail official\u2019s request, which cited logistical challenges in appearing before multiple benches.<\/p>\n
In one such petition filed by Yousafzai, Justice Ishaq had directed the authorities to produce the PTI founder before the court. However, citing security concerns, the directive was not complied with.<\/p>\n
The judge later assigned court clerk Sakina Bangash to visit the jail and verify whether Imran had been denied access to his legal counsel. Bangash, however, was unable to meet the ex-PM, leaving the key questions unanswered. This issue was also to be addressed by the larger bench.<\/p>\n
The hearing
\nAs the hearing began in the morning, Justice Ishaq summoned the court\u2019s Deputy Registrar (judicial) Sultan Mehmood and the Islamabad advocate general at 11am to seek the reasons for the cause list\u2019s cancellation.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you involved in whatever has happened?\u201d Justice Ishaq asked the advocate general. When Mehmood arrived, the judge asked him, \u201cOn whose directives did you cancel the cause list?\u201d<\/p>\n
The deputy registrar replied, \u201cWe were issued instructions by the [IHC] chief justice\u2019s office, which said that a larger bench has been formed so you may cancel this case\u2019s cause list.\u201d<\/p>\n
The judge then asked him under which law was the \u201cmiscellaneous application for the case transfer\u201d filed. \u201cDoes the state support transferring a case without the [presiding] judge\u2019s will?\u201d he further asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cInstead of doing this, you could have planted explosives in my courtroom\u2019s foundations and blown it up,\u201d Justice Ishaq remarked, expressing his displeasure.<\/p>\n
Noting a failure to \u201csettle basic questions\u201d, the judge lamented how the country would progress if the courts were deliberating upon the same fundamentals \u201cevery 10 years\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no greater folly than the economy making progress without implementation of the law,\u201d he observed.<\/p>\n
Justice Ishaq went on to stress that it was not a matter of his \u201cpersonality or authority but of the high court\u2019s respect\u201d. \u201cWould the public\u2019s belief in the justice system be maintained in this manner?\u201d he asked rhetorically.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Justice Sardar Ejaz Ishaq of the Islamabad High Court (IHC) initiated contempt proceedings on Wednesday after discovering that a case under his jurisdiction \u2014 concerning ex-premier Imran Khan\u2019s right to meet with his lawyer \u2014 had been transferred to a larger bench without his knowledge or consent. The IHC administration had yesterday constituted a three-member […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7055,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7054"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7054\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7056,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7054\/revisions\/7056"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}