By IANS,
Islamabad : Two senior-most judges of the Pakistan-administered Kashmir’s Supreme Court are on a warpath accusing each other of being “unworthy” of the high post.
Justice Riaz Akhtar Chaudhry, the chief justice of Azad Jammu and Kashmir — as Pakistan-administered Kashmir is officially known, is accused of character-assassination campaign of the senior-most judge Justice Manzoor Hussain Gilani, The News said Sunday.
Gilani, in a letter to the chief justice, bearing No. PS/SC/101/08, dated July 1, 2008, reminded him that he was six years junior to him and was made the chief justice within 20 days of his elevation to the Supreme Court.
The letter of Justice Gilani said that the incumbent chief justice (Chaudhry) was ridiculing, snubbing and pressuring the government officers, even the peons of the Supreme Court, not to obey the orders of Gilani and to go on a pen-down strike against him.
“You are multiplying the wrongs for protecting the wrong of your unconstitutional appointment. It will not end, unless the wrong is remedied,” the newspaper quoted Gilani’s letter as reading.
“It is really unbecoming and unfortunate to use the staff of the Supreme Court against a colleague judge which, in fact, is against the Supreme Court itself.”
Gilani ended the letter as: “Mr Chief Justice! Take pity on the institution, which has given me and you the respect of being called ‘Lords’.
“Let us adhere to the code of conduct, rules and regulations and our terms and conditions, and leave the rest to the competent authority to sort out according to the constitutional conventions, without using the press and the staff of the court for personal ends and belittling each other, and let us stop public and press statements at least from today.”