Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah issued these remarks as he expunged strictures made against two district judges by the Lahore High Court (LHC). During hearings of the appeals against the judicial orders of the two judges, the court had stated that their role in a particular case appeared to be ‘dubious’, passing strictures against them on June 22.
The judges challenged the stricture in the apex court and also expressed their disagreement with the order passed by the LHC. The complainants maintained that the impugned strictures and directions issued against them violated the principles laid out by the top court in the 2019 Nusrat Yasmin case. They requested the court to expunge the strictures against them in light of the Nusrat Yasmin case.
Justice Shah remarked, “Public reprimand of a judge of the lower court regarding his judicial conduct by an appellate court while sitting over his or her judicial decision, either by recording a stricture or a censorious remark in its appellate judgement or by summoning the judge and reproaching him orally in the open court, does not behove the judiciary of a constitutional democracy which boasts of the independence of a judiciary as its salient pillar.”