LAHORE: Lahore High Court Chief Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah has initiated fresh process of consultation with the constitutional members (from bar) of Judicial Commission to finalise nominees for vacant slots of judges in the court.

The commission in its recent meeting at Islamabad had deferred fresh appointments of judges in the LHC with an observation that some more names should be included in the list of nominees in order to select best out of the best.

Justice Shah had presented a list of 16 nominees (10 from bar and six from district judiciary) before the commission after an unprecedented shortlisting process.

The chief justice had asked the bar associations to recommend names of eligible lawyers for elevation to the bench. The aspirants were asked to provide their details by filling up an evaluation form provided by the court.

Sources reveal that the chief justice received 267 bar nominees and 134 of them had not provided details required in the evaluation form.

They say majority of the bar nominees were ignored for not furnishing their taxreturn details and `negative` remarks in reports prepared by four intelligence agencies.

A panel comprising chief justice and senior judges of the high court interviewed 64 nominees shortlisted from amongst the lawyers recommended by the bars.

Out of them, names of 10 lawyers were finalised and presented before the JC.

The sources say the CJ has started a fresh consultations with Pakistan Bar Council member Yasin Azad and Punjab Bar Council member Javed Hashmi. Both are members of the Judicial Commission to represent the bar. Justice Shah will present a new list of the nominees before the commission in a meeting scheduled for Nov 3.

A list of 16 nominees was earlier presented in the commission`s meeting presided over by its Chairman Chief Justice of Pakistan Anwar Zaheer Jamali.

The list included six district and sessions judges -Sohail Nasir, Abid Husain Qureshi, Mujahid Mustageem, Tariq Iftikhar Ahmad, Abdul Sattar and Habibullah Amir.

From the bar Muhammad Bashir Paracha, Asjad Javed Ghural, Tariq Saleem Sheikh, Jawad Hassan, Ahmad Raza Gillani, Muzammil Akhtar Shabbir, Mudassir Khalid Abbasi, Abdul Rehman Aurangzeb, Muhammad Ali and Chaudhry Abdul Aziz were on the list.