The Judicial Commission of Pakistan recommended 10 additional judges for the Peshawar High Court, a press release said on Saturday.

The nominees for the posts are as follows:

• Supreme Court advocate Muhammad Tariq Afridi
• Supreme Court advocate Abdul Fayaz
• District and Sessions Judge Farah Jamshed
• District and Sessions Judge Inam Ullah Khan
• Supreme Court advocate Sabit Ullah Khan
• Advocate Salah ud Din
• Supreme Court advocate Sadiq Ali
• Supreme Court advocate Syed Mudasser Ameer
• Advocate Aurangzeb
• Supreme Court advocate Qazi Jawad Ehsanullah

The commission unanimously decided that nominees who did not secure the required majority of the total membership of the commission for finalisation of their nominations this time may be re-nominated for future vacancies.

The chairperson also appreciated the services rendered by the staff of the Punjab Information Technology Board for assisting the members in using the web portal for the proceeding of the meeting.

On Friday, five judges from the Islamabad High Court sent a letter to the chief justices of the Supreme Court and various high courts, urging them to oppose reports suggesting that a transferred judge could be appointed to lead the IHC.

The letter, which was addressed to Chief Justice of Pakistan Yahya Afridi and the chief justices of the Islamabad, Sindh, and Lahore high courts, emphasized the need to prevent such transfers. It was signed by IHC’s senior puisne judge Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani, along with Justices Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri, Babar Sattar, Sardar Ejaz Ishaq Khan, and Saman Rafat Imtiaz. Justices Arbab Muhammad Tahir and Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb were also mentioned but did not sign the letter.

In their correspondence, the judges called on the chief justices to advise President Asif Ali Zardari against allowing such reported transfers, as there is currently no framework for a unified federal judicial service in Pakistan under the existing constitutional structure.

“The high courts are independent and autonomous. The justices who are elevated to a particular high court, take oath, under Article 194 of the Constitution, with respect a particular province, or for the purposes of the IHC, with respect to the Islamabad Capital Territory. Since the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution in 2010, and during the times of political democratic governments in Pakistan, there has been no precedent of permanent appointments to the high courts through the invocation of Article 200 of the Constitution,” the letter said.