Islamabad, November 28, 2025 – In a dramatic sign of deepening unrest within Pakistan’s superior judiciary, three Islamabad High Court judges have removed all personal belongings from their chambers over the past week, fuelling speculation that they are preparing to resign in protest against the 27th Constitutional Amendment.
Sources confirmed to a newspaper that Justices Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri, Babar Sattar, and Sardar Ejaz Ishaq Khan instructed their staff to pack books, documents, photographs, and decorative items shortly after the amendment came into force. The belongings were quietly transported to the judges’ residences, leaving their chambers stripped of personal traces.
Justices Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri, Babar Sattar and Sardar Ejaz Ishaq Khan had packed their personal effects and shifted them back to their respective residences over the past week. https://t.co/89BzBbUT5q
— Asad Ali Toor (@AsadAToor) November 28, 2025
The three judges were among the six IHC justices who, in March 2024, wrote an explosive letter to the Supreme Judicial Council alleging interference by intelligence agencies in judicial work — a disclosure that sparked nationwide debate on judicial independence.
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Justices Jahangiri and Sattar, elevated in December 2020, become eligible for full pension and post-retirement benefits after December 31, 2025. Justice Sardar Ejaz, appointed in December 2021, would require presidential discretion to receive similar benefits if he resigns now.
The 27th Amendment, which created the Federal Constitutional Court and allows involuntary transfer of high court judges, has been widely criticised by the legal community as an assault on judicial autonomy. Four of the letter-writing judges (excluding Justice Jahangiri) recently attempted to challenge the amendment directly before the Supreme Court under Article 184(3), only for the registrar to return their petition, directing them to the very FCC the amendment established.
Legal circles describe the packing of chambers as an unmistakable message: several senior judges may soon step down rather than serve under what they view as a fundamentally compromised judicial structure. No official resignations have been submitted yet, but the quiet exodus of personal effects has sent shockwaves through the capital’s legal fraternity.
