Supreme Court of Pakistan has sought a list of judges, civil servantsholding dual nationalities on Wednesday.

A three-judge bench, presided by Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian SaqibNisar, has given 15 days to the SC and high courts registrars to submit alist of dual nationals superior and lower judiciary judges. The bench,while hearing a case related to meter readers, also asked a secretaryestablishment to submit names of civil servants from grade 17 to 21 withdual nationalities within 15 days.

Currently the judges are not legally barred from holding dualnationalities, however, when the top court led by former Chief Justice ofPakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry disqualified dozens of parliamentariansfor dual nationalities, the members of parliament campaigned for a ban onjudges for the same.In March 2017, the government informed the National Assembly that despiterepeated requests the apex court and high courts of Lahore and Sindh havenot provided information regarding names of superior court judges havingdual nationalities.

On March 6, 2017, while answering a similar question on the floor of thehouse, former law minister Zahid Hamid had expressed ‘inability’ to get therequired information from superior courts.

“Not only repeated reminders have been sent to the registrar offices ofthese superior courts but also telephone calls were made to get therequisite information. But, it has not been provided yet,” Hamid hadinformed the legislators. “We cannot take any coercive measure against themto get the required information.”

On February 4, 2014 the Senate unanimously passed a resolution asking thegovernment to publish names of those judges of the superior judiciary whoheld dual citizenships and the then Senate chairman Nayyar Bokhari gave twomonths’ time for its implementation. PPP Senator Farhatullah Babar movedthe said resolution as well.