Ashtar Ausaf resigns as AGP ahead of JCP meeting on judges’ appointment

ISLAMABAD – Attorney-General of Pakistan (AGP) Ashtar Ausaf Ali has resigned from his post, it emerged on Wednesday

Reports claimed that Ausaf, who was appointed AGP in May this year following the removal of PTI government, had submitted his resignation to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

The outgoing attorney general said that he will be available until new AGP is appointed.

The development came a few minutes before the meeting of the Judicial Commission of Pakistan, which was called regarding appointment of judges.

The JCP is expected to take up the permanent appointment of 13 Lahore High Court judges, Geo News reported

The last JCP meeting held in July to discuss elevation of judges to the country’s top court was marred by controversy after two SC judges objected to an official press release about outcome of the meeting.

Justice Qazi Faez Isa and Justice Tariq Masood contested the press release issued by top court’s public relation officer, stating that the meeting had been deferred to enable the Chief Justice of Pakistan Umar Ata Bandial to place additional information and data about those already proposed and if he considers appropriate, add more names to the list of proposees for considerations.

Both judges claimed that the meeting had disapproved the nominations of judges, proposed by the CJP, for elevation to the apex court. In their letters to JCP, they called for released the “correct detailed minutes” of the meetings, adding that the chief justice “did not dictate the decisions that were taken, and left the meeting quite abruptly, followed by Justice Ijaz-ul-Ahsan”.

The situation prompted the chief justice of Pakistan to relax JCP rules and issued an audio of the two-hour-long meeting.

The top court said that the “audio recording from time slot 1:29:45 to 1:38:08 contains the statement” made by Attorney-General for Pakistan Ashtar Ausaf Ali, led to the deferment of the meeting as claimed by the PRO.

The statement added that the AGP “did not assess or reject the merits of any of the High Court judges proposed for appointment to the SCP”.