ISLAMABAD - The Parliamentary Committee on Appointment of Judges on Monday rejected the recommendation of the Judicial Commission seeking confirmation of service of two additional judges of the Sindh High Court (SHC).

The cases of Justice Nadeem Akhtar and Justice Shafi Siddiqi, additional judges of the SHC, were recommended for service regularisation by the Judicial Commission a few days back. After examining their cases, the Parliamentary Committee on Appointment of Judges deferred their regularisation, saying that both of them were not paying taxes.
Talking to the media after committee's meeting in Islamabad, its chairman Ch Aitzaz Ahsan said that the committee had reservations over the names of the two additional Judges because they were not paying taxes.
He said that cases of parliamentarians who did not pay taxes were highlighted but a different standard was being used for the regularisation of judges.
He said that he knew that the Judicial Commission's proposed judges would be regularised despite committee's disapproval.
He hoped that Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Asharaf would not approve the regularisation of recommended judges. The committee had earlier approved the regularisation of Justice Nisar Sheikh, one of the three additional judges recommended by the Judicial Commission.
Last month there were reports about huge tax evasion by the Parliamentarians. The federal tax ombudsman in its letter to the ECP cited that 70 percent of parliamentarians evaded taxes for the year 2011.
The parliamentarians reacted strongly to the media reports and said they were being singled out in this regard as judges, generals, bureaucrats and others also evade taxes. The ECP said recently that it was devising a mechanism to ensure that no tax evader could contest the upcoming general elections.