The Islamabad High Court (IHC) ordered the removal of Justice Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri as a judge on Thursday, ruling that his degree was “invalid” at the time of his appointment.
A division bench led by Chief Justice Sardar Muhammad Sarfraz Dogar and Justice Muhammad Azam Khan announced the judgement, which was reserved earlier today, on a plea that challenged the legitimacy of Justice Jahangiri’s law degree and appointment as a judge.
The bench directed Justice Jahangiri to cease his office forthwith for “having an invalid law degree at the time of his appointment and confirmation as a judge”.
It also directed the law ministry to denotify him as a judge.
The bench’s decision comes a day after Justice Jahangiri accused CJ Dogar of being “biased” against him and requested the Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) to set aside the recent IHC decision to hear a petition challenging his law degree. The same day, he also filed a formal complaint before the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) — the top forum for judicial accountability that probes allegations of misconduct against judges — against the chief justice.
Prior to the issuance of the judgement, University of Karachi (KU) Registrar Imran Ahmed Siddiqui submitted a record of Justice Jahangiri’s law degree to the court.
He said the KU syndicate had cancelled the judge’s degree for having been “secured through unfair means”.
“Justice Jahangiri was found cheating and creating disturbance in an examination hall in 1988,” following which he was debarred from sitting an exam until 1992, he said.
However, instead of complying with the decision, the judge appeared in an exam in 1989 under a changed name, the registrar alleged.
He also submitted a log pertaining to marksheets and results to justify the KU syndicate’s decision.
During his arguments, Advocate Muhammad Akram Sheikh, who was representing Justice Jahangiri, objected to the bench hearing the case.
He contended that a judge who faced legal proceedings could not hear the petition involving a fellow judge, who had challenged his posting.
In July, Justice Jahagiri, along with four other IHC judges, had filed an intra-court appeal against the Supreme Court’s constitutional bench decision of upholding the seniority of the IHC that raised Justice Dogar to the top.
The five judges requested the SC not to consider Justices Sardar Mohammad Sarfraz Dogar, Khadim Hussain Soomro and Mohammad Asif as judges of IHC until they took fresh oaths in accordance with Article 194.
The intra-court appeal was fixed before the FCC following its establishment under the 27th Constitutional Amendment and eventually dismissed for non-prosecution.
Sheikh’s argument today seemed to be referring to this matter.
He also highlighted that the Sindh High Court (SHC) had issued a stay order in connection with the matter, arguing that the IHC bench should not hear the case.
This, seemingly, was a reference ot the SHC order suspending the cancellation of Justice Jahangiri’s law degree by the KU syndicate.
Barrister Salahuddin Ahmad, who was also representing Justice Jahangiri, requested more time from the court to submit a reply.
For his part, the petitioner in the case, lawyer Mian Dawood, alleged that Justice Jahangiri had “misused” the SHC stay order. “Instead of clearing his name […] the judge has been filing petitions and scandalising his chief justice,” he commented.
Following these arguments, the court reserved its judgement in the case and later ordered the removal of Justice Jahangiri.
The case
The controversy surrounding Justice Jahangiri’s law degree originated from a letter that began circulating last year on social media, purportedly from the KU controller of examinations.
Subsequently, a complaint pertaining to his allegedly fake degree was submitted to the SJC last year in July and a petition challenging his appointment was also filed in the IHC earlier this year by Dawood.
The controversy followed a protracted legal trajectory since Sept 16, when the same IHC division bench first took up the petition and issued an interim order restraining Justice Jahangiri from performing judicial functions until the maintainability of the petition could be decided.
The decision, made without issuing prior notice to the judge, had sparked debate within the legal community over whether a high court could suspend a sitting judge through an interim order. On Sept 29, the SC intervened, setting aside the restraining order.
A five-member constitutional bench, headed by Justice Aminuddin Khan, held that a high court could not bar a judge from performing judicial functions while hearing a quo warranto petition.
The ruling clarified that it addressed only the legality of the interim order and not the merits of the allegations. The SC later directed the IHC to decide all preliminary objections and proceed with the matter in accordance with law.
After the IHC resumed the case’s proceedings, the Higher Education Commission (HEC) submitted a detailed report to the court on December 8, endorsing KU’s findings that the LLB degree of Justice Jahangiri was obtained through unfair means.
The HEC claimed it had never verified Justice Jahangiri’s law degree at any stage, nor had the judge ever approached the commission for verification.
At the next hearing on December 9, the court declared Dawood’s plea maintainable.
Another notable development in the case came on December 15, when Justice Jahangiri appeared before the court in person, presented arguments in his defence and raised objections on the division hearing his case. He expressed a lack of confidence in the bench on the ground that he had filed an intra-court appeal CJ Dogar.
He also took exception to the “haste” in which the proceedings were being held and criticised the earlier IHC directive barring him from work.
The court, however, dimissed his objections.
On December 17 — a day before today’s hearing — Justice Jahangiri moved a plea through senior counsel Uzair Karamat Bhandari in the FCC, requesting it to set aside the Dec 9 order that declared Dawood’s plea maintainable.
The FCC was told that CJ Dogar was biased against Justice Jahangiri and therefore disqualified from hearing any matter relating to his appointment. Justice Jahangiri recalled in the petition that he had already challenged Justice Dogar’s transfer to the IHC, followed by his elevation as IHC CJ and in these circumstances judicial propriety required that the IHC chief justice should not preside over proceedings concerning the writ of quo warranto.
Separately, Justice Jahangiri also filed a formal complaint against his boss, IHC CJ Dogar, before the SJC under Article 209 of the Constitution, accusing him of misconduct, bias, and violation of the Code of Conduct for Judges in relation to proceedings concerning the legitimacy of his degree and appointment.
According to the complaint, while the matter was sub judice, the IHC chief justice discussed the pending case with Justice Jahangiri and advised him, both directly and indirectly, to resign from office. Justice Jahangiri asserted that such conduct alone disqualified Justice Dogar from hearing the case.
The complaint alleged that during these discussions, the chief justice acknowledged that “tremendous pressure” was being exerted on him to decide the matter expeditiously and against Justice Jahangiri. It was claimed that Justice Dogar suggested that if he were to submit a post-dated resignation and hand it over to him for ‘safe-keeping’, it would help placate those exerting pressure and allow proceedings to be delayed.
Justice Jahangiri was also one of the six IHC judges who wrote to the SJC last year, alleging interference in judicial affairs by intelligence agencies. The letter sparked a wider debate on judicial independence and led to demands for an inquiry.
