President Asif Ali Zardari on Sunday designated Justice Sarfaraz Dogar as the senior-most judge of the Islamabad High Court (IHC), according to an updated seniority list issued by the Ministry of Law and Justice.
The announcement comes in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling on June 19, which upheld the constitutional validity of transferring judges between high courts and directed the matter of seniority determination to the president. Earlier this year, the law ministry’s decision to transfer three judges to the IHC had disrupted the court’s existing seniority order.
Justice Dogar, who was transferred from the Lahore High Court (LHC), has now been placed at the top of the IHC seniority list. The other two transferred judges — Justice Khadim Hussain Soomro from the Sindh High Court (SHC) and Justice Muhammad Asif from the Balochistan High Court (BHC) — have been assigned the 9th and 11th spots, respectively. President Zardari further affirmed that the transfers of all three judges are to be treated as permanent.
The decision has stirred fresh dissent within the IHC. On Friday, five sitting IHC judges filed a legal challenge against the Supreme Court’s verdict affirming the transfers. The petitioners — Justices Mohsin Akhtar Kayani, Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri, Babar Sattar, Sardar Ejaz Ishaq Khan, and Saman Rafat Imtiaz — argue that the Constitution requires high court judges to take a fresh oath upon transfer to a different court, which they contend should affect their seniority.
According to their representation, the seniority of transferred judges should begin from the date they took their oath at the IHC, placing them below the existing judges in the hierarchy. The protesting judges also boycotted Justice Dogar’s oath-taking ceremony as acting chief justice of the IHC, further underscoring the tensions surrounding the issue.
This latest move is likely to intensify the ongoing debate over judicial appointments, seniority protocols, and institutional autonomy within Pakistan’s judiciary.
