Judge in Pakistan recuses himself from panel probing fellow judge’s fake degree case

A judge from Pakistan’s Islamabad High Court has stepped down from a two-member bench hearing a high-profile fake degree case involving fellow judge Justice Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri - a controversy that has exposed rare divisions within Pakistan’s judiciary.

Justice Khadim Hussain Soomro recused himself on Monday from the division bench headed by Chief Justice Sardar Sarfaraz Dogar, effectively dissolving the panel and halting proceedings until a new bench is constituted.

The hearing also included a petition from the Islamabad Bar Association seeking to join the case, which was deferred following Soomro’s withdrawal.

The case stems from a decision by the University of Karachi in September to revoke Jahangiri’s law degree, citing discrepancies in enrollment records. The university concluded that Jahangiri had never been a student at the affiliated Islamia Law College, despite possessing an official enrollment number, and banned him from seeking admission or sitting exams for three years.

Following the university’s action, the Islamabad High Court suspended Jahangiri’s judicial functions pending a review by the Supreme Judicial Council, the country’s top judicial accountability body. However, Jahangiri and four other judges contested the chief justice’s authority to curb a sitting judge’s powers, arguing that only the council can make such determinations.

The controversy has since deepened, drawing protests from sections of the legal community. Lawyers at the Sindh High Court last month staged demonstrations after petitions questioning Jahangiri’s credentials were dismissed.

On September 30, Pakistan’s Supreme Court intervened, overturning an earlier order that had barred Jahangiri from performing his duties. The apex court ruled that a judge cannot be sidelined through an interim directive and instructed the Islamabad High Court to first address procedural objections raised by its registrar regarding the maintainability of the petition.