New Delhi: One of Pakistan’s most prominent high court judges, Justice Mohsin Kayani, hung up his robes Wednesday, resigning for what he described as “reasons of conscience”.
Kayani, a judge at the Lahore High Court since April, is now the fourth judge to resign following the controversial constitutional amendments. Earlier, Supreme Court Justices Syed Mansoor Ali Shah and Athar Minallah, and Lahore High Court Justice Shams Mehmood Mirza resigned in November last year, citing similar reasons.
Taking a dig at the military’s growing influence over the judiciary, Kayani said in his resignation letter that changes introduced through Pakistan’s 26th and 27th Constitutional Amendments had “compromised the independence and institutional integrity” of the judiciary.
“I have witnessed what I regard as the executive’s growing control over judicial institutions, extending to the appointment and transfer of judges. Such interference has, in my assessment, seriously eroded public confidence in judicial independence and the fairness of the judicial process.”
Kayani also expressed concern about ordinary litigants, saying their needs had too often been neglected in a system intended to serve them.
“In these circumstances, my conscience does not permit me to continue on the bench,” he wrote. He said he intended to return to legal practice, where he hoped to continue defending rights and promoting legal awareness.
His resignation comes more than five years before his scheduled retirement on 10 February 2032 and follows a prolonged dispute over judicial transfers and the administration of Pakistan’s high courts.
Executive vs judiciary
Kayani had served as the senior puisne judge of the Islamabad High Court since December 2015 before he was transferred to the Lahore High Court on 29 April, dropping to No. 12 on the latter’s seniority list. He was seen as a potential successor to the Islamabad High Court’s chief justice.
That prospect was complicated by the transfer of Justice Sardar Muhammad Sarfraz Dogar from the Lahore High Court to head the Islamabad High Court, along with the transfer of two other judges from the Sindh and Balochistan high courts.
Kayani and other judges challenged the inter-high court transfers. The Supreme Court’s constitutional bench upheld the transfers, including that of Dogar. The decision, however, became part of a broader dispute over the powers of high court chief justices and the administration of judicial rosters, Dawn reported.
Kayani and other senior Islamabad High Court judges subsequently approached the Supreme Court to challenge the administrative authority exercised by Chief Justice Dogar. They alleged that the court’s administration had become a “monocracy”, in which judges could be excluded from hearing cases at the chief justice’s discretion.
Although he was a senior judge at the Lahore High Court, he was not assigned to a division bench. Days before his resignation, he returned to the Islamabad-Rawalpindi area to preside over a single-judge bench at the high court’s Rawalpindi registry following a reshuffle. The new roster assigned him only to a single-judge bench there.
A vocal judge
Kayani has been vocal about the Army’s interference in the judiciary. He was also among six Islamabad High Court judges who, in March 2024, accused Pakistan’s intelligence apparatus of interfering in judicial affairs.
In a letter to members of the Supreme Judicial Council, the judges described alleged attempts to pressure them, including through the abduction and torture of relatives and secret surveillance inside their homes. Kayani had also presided over cases involving enforced disappearances, a longstanding and contentious issue in Pakistan. According to the Lahore High Court’s official website, he advocated legislative reforms, including stricter penalties for enforced disappearances.
Before his judicial appointment, Kayani held leadership positions in Islamabad’s legal community, serving as joint secretary and later general secretary of the Islamabad District Bar Association. He was president of the Islamabad High Court Bar Association from 2013 to 2014.
The 26th amendment, passed in October 2024, curtailed the powers of Pakistan’s Supreme Court and high courts, ended the Supreme Court’s ability to act on its own initiative and empowered the prime minister to appoint the chief justice of Pakistan (CJP) from among the three most senior judges, departing from the traditional seniority-based system.
The military subsequently sought to establish a Federal Constitutional Court (FCC), which would divide the Supreme Court’s functions: civil and criminal cases would remain with the Supreme Court, while constitutional challenges would be transferred to the new court. That proposal was thwarted, leading to a compromise under which both the Supreme Court and the high courts would have separate constitutional benches.
The 27th amendment, however, dismantled that arrangement and established the FCC. Pakistan now has two parallel apex courts, each headed by its own chief justice: the Supreme Court and the FCC.
In November 2025, soon after the 27th amendment was passed, Kayani and Saman Rafat Imtiaz had indicated that they might not continue serving.
“In these circumstances, my conscience does not permit me to continue on the bench. This is a painful decision, but it reflects my conviction that judicial office must remain inseparable from independence, fidelity to the Constitution, and the protection of human dignity,” Kayani wrote in his letter.
“I, therefore, consider that the time has come for me to lay down my robes and return to legal practice, through which I intend to continue serving the people, protecting their rights, and promoting legal awareness,” he added.
(Edited by Prashant Dixit)