LAHORE: The Lahore High Court on Monday upheld an office objection and directed a petitioner’s counsel to furnish minutes of a Punjab caretaker cabinet’s meeting that approved interest-free loans for its 11 judges of the court.

The court took up a ‘public interest’ petition as an “objection case” since the registrar office had raised objections on its maintainability.

The office objected to the unavailability of different necessary documents including the minutes of the cabinet meeting. The court directed the petitioner’s counsel to remove the office objection first.

The counsel assured the court of providing a copy of the cabinet’s meeting minutes.

The petitioner Mashkoor Hussain pleaded that the caretaker cabinet approved a facility of interest free loan to each judge equal to 36 basic pays for the purchase/ construction of houses. He said each of the 11 judges has a basic pay to the tune of rupees 912,862.

The petitioner pointed out that the loan amount was being released in one installment and would be recovered from the judges through deduction of one-fourth basic pay on a monthly basis. Eventually, the interest-free loan would be recovered in 12 years while some of the judges would reach superannuation in a year or before the recovery of the loan amount.

He stated that there was no precedent that a loan, that too interest-free, was recovered from the pension of a government servant. He said the judges on their own made a desire to get interest-free loans and that the act made them look like politicians who would usually misuse power for personal gains.

He argued that the act of the judges had serious repercussions as the public would lose its confidence in the judiciary and consider the judges biased because the cases before judiciary were always against the executive branch.

The petitioner said the impugned act of respondents and the judges also amounts to violation of Article 2-A and Article 25 of the Constitution.

He said the public and even the poor were being charged 22 percent interest on loans from the banks while a judge withdrawing a whopping salary was getting interest-free loans.

The petitioner prayed to the court to set aside the approval of the interest-free loans to the judges for being illegal. He asked the court to direct the government to charge interest if the loan was already granted to the judges as it was being charged from the public at large.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023