By IANS
Islamabad : The strength of Pakistan’s Supreme Court has been reduced from 17 to 12 since “good and efficient judges” are not available, the country’s top law officer says.
This process would be completed by the end of this week by elevating two more judges to the apex court, Daily Times Monday quoted Attorney General Malik Muhammad Qayyum as saying.
Asked why this was being done, he said it was “due to unavailability of good and efficient judges”.
According to Qayyum, the constitutional strength of the apex court was 17 judges but two ad hoc judges had been appointed during the tenure of sacked chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry.
The entire 19-member bench was sacked after the emergency was imposed Nov 3 as the judges refused to take oath under the Provisional Constitution Order (PCO). A 10-member bench was sworn in to replace them.
The attorney general said there was no bar in the constitution on reducing the strength of the Supreme Court and in the past the bench strength had even dropped to 10 judges.
Replying to a question, Qayyum said the former judges of the Supreme Court, including Chaudhry, Rana Bhagwandas, Khalilur Rehman Ramday, were deemed to have retired and would be eligible for full pension and other benefits.
He also claimed that the deposed judges had not been placed under house arrest but that “security had been provided to them as they still claim to be the judges”.
“He said the deposed judges were free to move wherever they wanted to go, but they would have to accept the fact that they were no more judges,” Daily Times reported.