LAHORE – MIAN DAWOOD - A two-member bench of the Supreme Court expunged adverse remarks against Lahore High Court (LHC) Registrar Sohail Nasir in his annual confidential report (ACR), which were made part of the ACR by a three-member apex court bench in 2009.
The expunction of adverse remarks may helpful for Sohail Nasir because such remarks create hurdles whenever the name of any judicial officer is being considered for the LHC judgeship. According to the documents available with this scribe, Sohail Nasir was working as additional sessions judge Attock and had awarded life imprisonment each to two accused in a narcotic substance case after declaring them juvenile offenders(less than 18 years of age) despite the fact that both convicts had themselves admitted in their statements before trail court that they were above 20 years when the incident took place.
Their appeal against conviction was rejected by the Lahore High Court Rawalpindi Bench and the issue finally landed in the Supreme Court.
A three-member bench comprising Justice Khalil-ur-Rehman Ramday, Justice Mian Shakirullah Jan and Justice Raja Fayyaz Ahmed heard the appeals but did not reverse the sentence awarded to two convicts by the trail court.
The bench, however, observed in its order issued on July 23, 2009 that trial court relied upon some school leaving certificates of both accused (Khan Zeb and Khan Munir) without seeking any proof about authenticity of said documents.
“A reckless finding and a callous exercise of discretion vesting in the said learned judge which could not be approved,” the three-member bench had ordered the authorities to include these remarks in the ACR of Sohail Nasir.
Meanwhile, the then LHC Chief Justice Ijaz Ahmad Chaudhry appointed Sohail Nasir as LHC Registrar on April 27, 2011. He waited three years to approach apex court for expunction of remarks against him. A two-member bench led by Justice Shakirullah Jan on March 1, 2012 expunged such remarks from his ACR. Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali was other judge on the bench.
The court order said, “learned addl advocate general (Razzaq A Mirza) do not oppose the prayer made in the application for expunction of said observations. We are of the view that these observations be expunged from the judgment and order accordingly. The observations which have been made part of personal file/ACR file of the applicant be taken out of the record. The application is allowed in the above terms.”
Sohail Nasir is a sessions judge rank officer and stands 12 at seniority list but his name is being considered for the LHC judgeship.
This was the second incident that a sessions judge was made LHC registrar despite having adverse remarks in his ACR.
Previously, the Supreme Court had refused to expunge remarks against Tahir Pervaiz who was made the LHC registrar in the tenure of Justice Khawaja Muhammad Sharif.