KARACHI: Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Gulzar Ahmed on Friday expressed his displeasure over the remarks of the Sindh High Court Bar Association (SHCBA) president with regard to separate notes written by the Supreme Court judges in Justice Qazi Faez Isa case and said that all judgments authored by the judges are in fact SC’s judgments.

The chief justice, who was invited as chief guest at SHCBA’s annual dinner at SHC lawns, said that by creating impression that some judges delivered bold judgments while some judges did not do so is not appropriate and “such impression should not be created rather it is contempt of the Supreme Court.”

Justice Gulzar asked bar leaders to avoid creating division in the bench by making such statements as the same would “jeopardize the credibility” of the SC.

“All the judgements authored by judges of Supreme Court are the Supreme Court’s judgement and nothing else,” the country’s top judge said.

Regarding additional land for Sindh High Court and subordinate courts, the CJP said that the SC was in contact with the Sindh government to grant land for construction of additional blocks of SHC annex as well as district courts. The CJP, however, did not deliver his keynote speech due to paucity of time.

Earlier, in his speech the SHCBA president Ziaul Haq Makhdoom said that the former president of Supreme Court Bar Association (Yaseen Azad) had recently revealed in an interview that Prime Minister Imran Khan had offered different bar leaders, who went to him to seek his assistance on various matters concerning the bar, a conditional assistance on the bar’s support for the government’s reference filed against Justice Isa.

“The bars of Pakistan are not amenable to blackmail or bribes and no force in the world can stop us from supporting right against wrong,” the SHCBA president said. He appreciated the judgments authored by Justice Maqbool Baqar and Justice Mansoor Ali Shah in the Faez Isa petition.

Published in Dawn, November 8th, 2020