Abu Bakar Khan is a JURIST staff correspondent and lawyer based in Pakistan.

On Friday morning, five sitting judges of the Islamabad High Court (IHC) walked into the Supreme Court of Pakistan (SCP)—not to hear cases, but to file one.

In an extraordinary and historic move, Justices Mohsin Akhtar Kayani, Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri, Babar Sattar, Sardar Ejaz Ishaq Khan, and Saman Rafat Imtiaz appeared as petitioners against their own Chief Justice, Sardar Muhammad Sarfraz Dogar.

The five judges argued that the Chief Justice’s use of administrative powers—such as forming benches, transferring cases, and setting rosters—exceeded constitutional limits. They maintained that once a case is assigned to a bench, it cannot be withdrawn or reassigned.

The petitioners also asserted that the Chief

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