PESHAWAR: Four additional judges of the Peshawar High Court have ceased to function as the president of Pakistan has yet to give assent to the confirmation of their services as recommended by the Judicial Commission of Pakistan (JCP).

The four judges, including Justice Farah Jamshed, Justice Inamullah Khan, Justice Sabitullah Khan and Justice Aurangzeb, were appointed as additional judges for a period of one year and they had taken oath of their offices on Feb 4, 2025.

On the JCP’s recommendations early this year, their service terms as additional judges were extended for six months. The time ended on Aug 4.

In a meeting on July 20, the JCP recommended confirmation of the services of the said four judges under Article 175(A) of the Constitution.

Article 175(A)(8) declares: “The Commission, by the majority of its total membership, shall nominate one person for each vacancy of a Judge in the Federal Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court, a High Court or the Federal Shariat Court, as the case may be, to the Prime Minister who shall forward the same to the President for appointment.”

However, no deadline has been set for the president to give assent to the recommendations received from the prime minister.

Official sources said that the Peshawar High Court was also in contact with the law ministry on the situation arising from the delay in the presidential nod to the JDC recommendations.

They said no case had been assigned to any of these four judges since Aug 3.

An official insisted that judicial work couldn’t be assigned to those judges unless the relevant notification was issued by the government.

PHC Bar Association president Ameenur Rehman Yousafzai has called upon the president to give assent to the recommendations to pave the way for issuance of the relevant notification by the federal government so as to end the impasse.

He told reporters that in light of the Constitution and superior court judgements, the President couldn’t withhold the summary and it was binding on him to give assent to it.

Mr Yousafzai said that it was the constitutional powers of the JCP to recommend service confirmation of judges after due consideration of the relevant data forms, antecedents, and evaluation of the material placed before it.

He said that the PHC was already short of judges and delaying the matter would affect the day-to-day affairs of the high court and would also result in an increasing backlog of pending cases.

The four judges were initially appointed as additional judges along with six others, who have already been confirmed as the regular high court judges in Feb this year.

Justice Jamshed was the lone woman judge in the PHC. Both Justice Jamshed and Justice Inamullah Khan were senior judicial officers prior to their elevation to the bench. They belong to Mansehra and Bannu districts, respectively.

Once the relevant notification is issued of their service confirmation as regular judges, the retirement of Justice Jamshed and Justice Inamullah will take place in Jan 2032 and Sept 2029, respectively.

Both of them had joined the judicial service in1994 as civil judges. They were promoted as additional district and sessions judges in 2007 and subsequently as district and sessions judges in 2011.

In over three-decade long judicial careers, they held key positions. Justice Jamshed was also the first woman director general of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Judicial Academy. Justice Inamullah also served as the additional registrar of the PHC’s Dera Ismail Khan Bench.

The other two judges, including Justice Sabitullah and Justice Aurangzeb, were prominent lawyers enjoying respect in the legal fraternity. After service confirmation, they will retire in Dec 2033 and Dec 2039, respectively.

Published in Dawn, August 6th, 2026