Six additional judges of PHC take oath today

PESHAWAR: The strength of the Peshawar High Court (PHC) has reached 15 as six additional judges have administered oath today (Tuesday).

The PHC Chief Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan administered the oath to the new judges at Courtroom-I. These judges are Khalid Mehmood, Fazal Haq Abbasi, Nisar Hussain Khan, Waqar Ahmad Seth, Qaiser Rashid and Malik Azmatullah.

Interestingly, only three of the 15 PHC judges are confirmed as the remaining 12 are additional judges. The confirmed judges are Chief Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan, Justice Shahjehan Khan Yousafzai and Justice Dost Mohammad Khan.

Ignoring the bench in the new elevations has caused heartburning to the judicial officers, who say that it was injustice with them to end up as a district and sessions judge after serving as judicial officers for 30 to 35 years. Presently, out of the 15 judges only two are from the subordinate judiciary. They are Justice Attaullah Khan and Justice Miftauddin Khan. The others are from the bar.

The names of the six new judges were recommended by the Judicial Commission headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry on July 6. The Parliamentary Committee for appointment of judges also approved these names after which a notification about their appointment was issued.

President Asif Ali Zardari, on the advice of Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani, on July 25 appointed the six additional judges in the PHC for a period of one year. The new judges would start their judicial work today as the PHC chief justice has already assigned judicial work to them.