ISLAMABAD: Two Supreme Court judges, Justice Mansoor Ali Shah and Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhel, in a dissenting note in a verdict in the suo motu case regarding elections, have raised questions over the powers of the chief justice of Pakistan (CJP).
At the same time, the two judges have strongly criticized former chief justice Mian Saqib Nisar for interfering in administrative matters by using suo motu powers during his tenure.
The judges quoted an excerpt from a book by political scientist Yasir Qureshi stating that the way the former chief justice exercised the suo motu powers had never been used by any chief justice in the entire history of Pakistan.
The quote sarcastically mentions that “it is impossible to do justice inside and outside the court by resorting to the yardstick of Saqib Nisar, who had taken it upon himself to fix all economic and social problems of the whole of Pakistan.
The two judges said that all were subject to the judicial hammer of Saqib Nisar, from transparency to water distribution to milk production and hospital management to disparity in the education sector and reigning in the growing population.
Justice Mansoor Ali Shah and Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhel also quoted from the book that the former chief justice took 30 suo motu notices in the first three months of 2018, all based on newspaper clippings, TV channels’ headlines or posts shared on social media.
In one case, they said, Justice Saqib Nisar took notice of a photograph shared on social media showing a funeral wading through sewage.
In their dissenting note, both the judges said that the powers of the Supreme Court are elucidated in the constitution and law and these are not defined according to the convenience and wishes of a judge, and when this happens, it becomes a royal court.
