President issues notification Justice Sarfraz Dogar IHC senior-most judge

In the latest development in the ongoing legal saga related to the seniority issue and transfer of judges, President Asif Ali Zardari has notified Justice Sarfraz Dogar as the senior-most judge of the Islamabad High Court — who is already serving as the IHC’s acting chief justice.
The notification issued by the Ministry of Law and Justice, dated June 27, is in line with the Supreme Court’s June 19 order wherein a five-member bench had dismissed pleas filed against the transfer of judges from three high courts to the IHC and termed them as being constitutional while allowing Justice Dogar to continue to work as IHC’s acting CJ.
The Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar-led bench had announced its verdict in response to petitions filed by five IHC judges, the Karachi Bar Association (KBA), the IHC Bar Association, and others against the transfer of Justice Sarfraz Dogar from the Lahore High Court (LHC), Justice Khadim Hussain Soomro from the Sindh High Court (SHC), and Justice Muhammad Asif from the Balochistan High Court (BHC).
All three judges had been transferred to the IHC. The move had been challenged in the apex court by Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani, Justice Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri, Justice Babar Sattar, Justice Sardar Ejaz Ishaq Khan and Justice Saman Riffat Imtiaz who prayed that the court declare that the president lacked unfettered and unbridled discretion to transfer judges from one high court to another, under Article 200(1) of the Constitution, without a manifest public interest, and in a manner that hampers the principles of independence of judiciary and separation of powers.