In a rare development, the Supreme Court’s second senior-most judge after the incumbent chief justice, Ijaz Ul Ahsan, resigned on Thursday.
Ahsan, who would become the next chief justice of Pakistan after incumbent CJP Qazi Faez Isa, has sent his resignation to President Arif Alvi, raising questions over his untimely departure.
The major event comes within a day of Justice (retd) Sayyed Mazahar Ali Akbar Naqvi’s resignation, which has also been accepted by the president today.
Ahsan would have become the chief justice — the highest judicial office in the country that comes with supreme power — after CJP Isa’s term concluded in October this year as Justice Tariq Masood, the senior puisne judge, would hang his robes before that.
In his resignation to the president, Ahsan said he no longer wished to continue as the top court’s judge, therefore, he was resigning under Article 206(1) of the Constitution with immediate effect.
