ISLAMABAD: Five district and sessions judges, two of them already retired, and a registrar are included in the 31 justices appointed in the Lahore High Court (LHC) and Sindh High Court (SHC).

Of them, Nisar Mohammad Shaikh was working as registrar of the SHC while Justice Syed Zakir Hussain was serving as district judge Thattha. Of the lawyers appointed as judges to the SHC, Imam Bux Baloch was practicing in Nawabshah while Abdul Hadi Khoso was based in Larkana.

Other lawyers including Mohammad Ali Mazhar, Syed Hasan Azhar Rizvi, Salman Hamid, Zahid Hamid and Mohammad Tasneem, are stated to be reputed advocates. Karachi-based lawyers say the appointments in the SHC have been made on merit.

There were two serving — Rauf Ahmad Shaikh and Shaikh Ahmad Farooq — and two retired — Mohammad Naseem Akhtar and Syed Akhlaq Ahmad — district judges, who are included in the 22 judges picked up for the LHC.

Of the lawyers, Yawar Ali Khan, former Deputy Attorney General, is the son of former Supreme Court Chief Justice Yaqoob Ali Khan and brother-in-law of Justice Khalilur Rehman Ramday.

Another appointee, Chaudhry Shahid Saeed, had been a junior of Justice Ramday’s deceased brother, Chaudhry Mohammad Farooq, the former Attorney General of Pakistan. Mian Shahid Iqbal was Secretary of the Lahore district bar when LHC Chief Justice Khawaja Mohammad Sharif was its president long time ago.

Shaukat Umar Pirzada, aligned with the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), was secretary of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) when Ali Ahmed Kurd was its president. He is also the former chairman of the executive committee of the Punjab Bar Council.

Waqar Hassan Mir is former deputy prosecutor general of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB). He had been a junior of the LHC chief justice. Ijaz Ahmed, belonging to Bahawalpur, is related to former advocate general Abdus Sattar Najam and ex-federal law minister Chaudhry Abdul Ghafoor, now a PPP MNA.

Anwar Bhour is the son of the former district & sessions judge Kazim Bhour. Shahid Hameed Dar is said to be related to the LHC chief justice. Mazhar Iqbal Sidhu has been associated with the PPP.

Mamoon Rashid Shaikh is the son of former Supreme Court judge AR Shaikh and related to prominent lawyer AK Dogar. Hassan Raza Pasha hails from Chakwal, Anwarul Haq from Jhelum and Chaudhry Mohammad Tariq from Rawalpindi.

While the Punjab governor and the federal law minister tried to pick up holes in the recommendations of the Lahore High Court chief justice for the appointment of judges, they conveniently ignored one nominee who was a diehard PPP Jiyala and was an aspirant for a PPP ticket in the last general election.

The nominee, Hassan Raza Pasha, who is now an additional judge of the LHC, has been a PPP leader from Chakwal.

Malik Muhammad Nawaz Awan, General Secretary, PPP District Chakwal, confirmed to ‘The Statesmen’ that Hassan Raza Pasha had applied for a PPP ticket but was denied. However, other PPP leaders in Chakwal hesitate to come on record but in their off-the-record conversations say that the said judge had been with the PPP since long.

A PPP leader from Chakwal, on condition of anonymity, told this correspondent that Hassan Raza Pasha had applied for the ticket of PPP from PP-20 Chakwal-I for 2008 polls, but he was not awarded the party ticket. Instead, the ticket was given to Malik Nazir Hussain. “Hassan had every chance of winning the party ticket but because of his differences with the party’s local leadership, he was denied the ticket,” said the PPP leader. “Besides being a competent lawyer, Hassan is also well-known for his bar politics in Chakwal.”

PPP workers also mention that Hassan Raza Pasha played an active role during the lawyers’ movement in his district and was among those few who were prominent in every protest and function related to the lawyers after March 9, 2007.

Another name in the list of additional judges of the LHC is of Chaudhry Muhammad Tariq, hailing from Rawalpindi who had remained Punjab additional prosecutor general for over four years and was appointed against the said post during the PML-Q’s government. Lawyers in Pindi say that Tariq had good reputation in civil cases but was a known Muslim League man.