=> KARACHI, Dec 14: A five-member bench of the Sindh
KARACHI, Dec 14: A five-member bench of the Sindh High Court adjourned the hearing of the May 12 case to Jan 15, 2008, to consider the maintainability of the proceedings.
An associate of Advocate Qazi Faez Isa, who was appointed amicus curiae (friend of the court) by the previous seven-member bench that had initiated the case, told the bench as it commenced its proceedings that the lawyer could not appear because he was on general adjournment. He was also indisposed.
Advocate-General Masood A. Noorani pointed out that Mr Isa had refused to appear before the present bench because he did not recognise its members as judges.
He wanted restoration of the old seven-member bench to enable him to make his submissions. The AG said that the first question to be decided was the maintainability of the case.
Whenever a question involving jurisdiction is raised, the court should proceed to decide it first. He referred to a 1960 Supreme Court judgment setting aside an order of the West Pakistan High Court against the provincial accountant-general. The SC held that the high court could not proceed suo motu in a matter involving its own grievance.
A complainant could not be a judge in his own cause, the AG said, recalling that the May 12 case was initiated on the complaint of the SHC registrar.
The provincial government counsel, Raja Qureshi, submitted that the apex court rendered an identical judgment in a 1989 case. It ruled against the exercise of suo motu powers by the high court. It also held that no one could be a judge in his own cause.
The bench, which consisted of Chief Justice Mohammad Afzal Soomro and Justices Munib Ahmed Khan, Nadeem Azhar Siddiqui, Rana M. Shamim and Abdur Rehman Farooq Pirzada, observed that the case was initiated because some of the judges could not access the court on May 12. Containers were placed around the SHC building, it said.
Advocate Qureshi said that the containers were placed under an arrangement concluded between the administration and the Sindh High Court Bar Association, according to which only Ghulam Hussain Hidayatullh Road was to be kept open for all the judges and lawyers on May 12.
The SHCBA and the registrar should have informed all the lawyers and judges of the arrangement, made in pursuance of a court order to provide maximum security to Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry on his visit to the Sindh High Court to address a function organised to mark the silver jubilee of the Supreme Court.
The bench decided to hear arguments on the question of maintainability and directed that notices be issued to all the lawyers appearing for the various parties to address arguments on the issue on Jan 15.
Source: Dawn
Date:12/15/2007
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