Supreme Court Rejects Petition to Reduce Benefits for Retired Judges

The Supreme Court (SC) office on Friday objected to a petition filed seeking instruction on revising pension and other service benefits for retiring high court justices.

The petition moved by Advocate Zulfikar Ahmed Bhutta was returned by the SC registrar’s office. The reason given was that the petitioner had not stated what concerns of public interest were implicated in the current case with regard to the implementation of any of the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution to directly invoke the SC’s jurisdiction under Article 184(3).

Advocate Zulfikar Bhutta filed the plea at Pakistan’s Supreme Court, seeking the court to examine the service perks (such as pensions and allowances) of retiring high court judges. The petition included the President of Pakistan as a respondent and asserted that, as stated in Article 205 of the Fifth Schedule, the President has the ability to decide the compensation and other terms and conditions of employment for judges.

The petition was dismissed by the Supreme Court on the basis that it was a personal grievance addressed through the Court’s exceptional authority (Article 184(3)), which is not permissible by a 1998 decision in the Zulfikar Mehdi case.