Fifteen reportable judgments across the 20 to 26 October 2026 upload window (Sunday 25 October excluded) — two from the Federal Constitutional Court, four from the Supreme Court, three from the Lahore High Court, three from the Islamabad High Court and three from the Sindh High Court. The Islamabad High Court returns to the digest after seven months, its listing having carried no reportable judgment since 18 March 2026.

Federal Constitutional Court of Pakistan

• Muhammad Yameen v. Government of Sindh — an upper age limit introduced by the Anti-Terrorism (Sindh Amendment) Act 2025 does not curtail the subsisting fixed tenure of Anti-Terrorism Court judges already appointed; statutes touching substantive rights are presumed prospective unless retrospectivity is expressed or necessarily implied, and a non obstante clause alone does not carry an amendment back over completed appointments. Petition converted into appeal and allowed; the cessation notification declared of no legal effect and the petitioner deemed to continue to the end of his tenure.
• Chairman, KP Text Book Board v. Musadiq Ali Bangash — upgradation of a post is distinct from cadre status and seniority, and a judgment extending upgradation while expressly leaving seniority open cannot be read as a final adjudication of cadre; relief affecting the inter se seniority of other employees requires them to be impleaded and heard, and a second claim arising from the same cause is barred by constructive res judicata. Appeal allowed; the Peshawar High Court judgment set aside.

Supreme Court of Pakistan

• Universal Service Fund v. Federation of Pakistan — for a company limited by guarantee, ‘wholly owned’ by the Federal Government requires all its members to be Federal Government nominees, read strictly to preserve the right of appeal under the substituted section 134A; and the withholding obligation under section 153(1)(b) arises only where the payer is the recipient of the services, not where the benefit accrues to third parties (here the public in unserved and underserved areas). Appeal allowed; the ADR Committee’s decision and the amending order set aside and section 21(c) held inapplicable.
• M/s Seven-Star Tyre v. Director General Customs Valuation — the valuation methods in section 25 of the Customs Act must be applied in sequential order, and direct resort to the fall-back method under section 25(9) while bypassing the earlier methods is unsupported; the Customs Appellate Tribunal is the final fact-finding forum and the High Court in reference jurisdiction cannot disturb its findings of fact unless a question challenging them as perverse is competently raised. Petitions converted into appeals and allowed; the High Court judgment set aside and the Tribunal restored.
• M/s A.J Textile Mills v. Commissioner Inland Revenue — section 8(1)(a) of the Sales Tax Act 1990 does not disallow input tax on raw material destroyed by fire, loss by damage not being ‘use’ and section 8 being directed at the purpose for which goods were acquired or actually used rather than their fate (following Mayfair Spinning Mills). Appeal allowed; the Peshawar High Court judgment set aside and the Tribunal restored.
• Shaman v. Syed Kamran Haider Gillani — a plaintiff attacking a registered sale deed for fraud must plead its particulars under Order VI Rule 4, and registration carries a presumption of regularity that a bare, uncorroborated denial cannot displace; the pardanashin doctrine operates only on a properly pleaded case of want of understanding or consent, a sale deed is a conveyance that needs no vendee’s signature, and in a belated suit the dates of execution, knowledge and institution must be kept distinct. Appeals allowed; the Trial Court’s dismissal of the suit restored.

Lahore High Court

• Mehar Farhan v. The State — the Punjab Sentencing Act 2019 has now been brought into operation, and under section 6 every aggravating or mitigating circumstance must be proved by admissible evidence rather than urged in argument; but applicability under section 3 turns on the legal character of the offence, so the whole of section 302 PPC lies outside the Act, and the Act cannot dilute a mandatory minimum. On the facts, with no premeditation, the conviction was altered from section 302(b) to section 302(c) PPC and the sentence reduced to the period undergone.
• Muhammad Farooq Malik v. Member, Punjab Defamation Tribunal — where a statute ousts the ordinary courts, prescribes an exclusive forum and a limitation period but the Government fails to constitute that forum, limitation cannot defeat a litigant who meanwhile approached the civil court within time (lex non cogit ad impossibilia); the saving in section 10(5) is confined to proceedings already pending under the repealed Ordinance. Appeal allowed; the time-bar order set aside and the claim remitted to the Tribunal on merits.
• Muhammad Umar Hassan v. Deputy Commissioner, Lahore — an individual District Health Authority officer, not constituted as an inspection team under section 22 of the Punjab Healthcare Commission Act 2010, cannot inspect and seal a registered healthcare establishment; the section 36 duty to act in aid is not a conferment of the Commission’s coercive powers, an administrative directive cannot enlarge who holds them, and a later hearing cannot cure an absence of competence. Both petitions allowed; the sealing declared without lawful authority and the premises to be de-sealed.

Islamabad High Court

• Muhammad Uzair Anwar v. Federation of Pakistan — the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency has no lawful authority to direct banks to freeze accounts: the freezing power under section 5(5) of the FIA Act is exclusive to the FIA, the NCCIA (now a separate agency under section 29 of PECA) exercises only the powers delegated by that Act, Rule 5 of the 2025 Rules was framed in excess of them, and the proper course for suspected proceeds of crime is a court order under section 8 of the Anti-Money Laundering Act. Intra-court appeals allowed; the Single Judge’s judgment set aside and the accounts to be unfrozen.
• Muhammad Usman v. Federation of Pakistan — a bank may not impose a debit block of its own motion where no lawful direction to freeze has issued; bank deposits are property within Articles 23 and 24, and any restraint must trace to express legal authority with procedural fairness and reasonable justification, the removal of the block during the case not rendering the question academic. Petition disposed of (applying the Division Bench in I.C.A. 362/2025); the State Bank invited to issue guidance and the bank ordered to bear the petitioner’s costs of Rs. 300,000.
• Petrosin CNG v. Mari Energies — section 3 of the Recognition and Enforcement (Arbitration Agreements and Foreign Arbitral Awards) Act 2011 is a post-award provision that creates no independent cause of action and cannot be used to obtain interim relief before an award; a London seat vests supervisory jurisdiction in the courts of the seat, interim measures are ancillary and cannot grant final relief, the ICC Emergency Arbitrator mechanism is part of the parties’ bargain and the failure to invoke it is fatal, and election, kompetenz-kompetenz and res judicata bar re-litigating a concluded section 4 adjudication. Enforcement petition dismissed.

Sindh High Court

• Sindh Revenue Board v. M/s Media 5ive Holdings — a periodic filing obligation generates a separate offence for each period, so successive non-filing is several offences and not one continuous offence; ‘repetition’ under Serial No. 13 of the Table to section 43 is a matter of persistence rather than mere number, the doubled penalty is substituted and not additional and must be computed default by default, and mens rea is an ingredient the department must establish. Reference answered; the penalty under Serial No. 13 remitted to the Tribunal for fresh decision.
• M/s ABM Investment v. Civil Aviation Club — a stay under section 10 CPC requires the statutory conditions of identity of parties and litigating under the same title to be separately satisfied on the pleadings, overlap of facts, transactions or reliefs not being enough; section 151 cannot be used to override section 10, and constitutional review of a competent revisional order is confined to jurisdictional defect or material illegality. Petition dismissed; the stay maintained.
• Muhammad Nazar Gondal v. Government of Sindh — the grant of a mining concession is the antithesis of public procurement, so the Procurement Rules do not apply; a permit may be granted only on the advice of the Mines Committee, and a process conducted when no Committee had been constituted confers no right, a bid at auction being an offer that gives a legitimate expectation only, with an enforceable right arising solely on acceptance by the competent authority. Petitions dismissed, but the application fees and deposits taken in the unlawful process ordered to be refunded within thirty days.