Lahore High Court Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani resigned on Wednesday, October 28, 2026, in a letter to President Asif Ali Zardari. The stated personal reason is health concerns following a recent surgery. The reason of conscience is a direct charge: that the 26th and 27th Constitutional Amendments have compromised the independence and institutional integrity of the high courts. Kayani is the fourth superior court judge to resign after those amendments.
This article reads the letter as a checklist: its three charges, tested against Kayani’s record, and the three decisions now to follow.
What the letter actually says
Kayani calls his years at the Islamabad High Court and the Lahore High Court a privilege, and says he disposed of more than 23,000 cases while trying to uphold the Constitution. His conclusion: in his considered view, the 26th and 27th Amendments have compromised the independence and institutional integrity of the high courts.
The letter makes three distinct charges. First, that he has witnessed what he regards as the executive’s growing control over judicial institutions. Second, that this control extends to the appointment and transfer of judges, the two levers that decide who sits where. Third, that such interference has seriously eroded public confidence in judicial independence and the fairness of the judicial process. Framing all three is his concern for the ordinary litigant, the principal stakeholder in the justice system, whose suffering continues to deepen. His conscience, he writes, does not permit him to continue, and he will return to legal practice.
The transfer that makes the second charge personal
The transfer charge is not abstract here. He was among three judges transferred from the Islamabad High Court in April 2026, proposed by Islamabad High Court Chief Justice Sardar Sarfraz Dogar. The Judicial Commission of Pakistan, chaired by Chief Justice Yahya Afridi, approved the transfers on April 28. Kayani moved to the Lahore High Court, Justice Babar Sattar to the Peshawar High Court, and Justice Saman Rafat Imtiaz to the Sindh High Court.
After the transfer, Kayani lost seniority under a new roster and was reassigned to the Lahore High Court’s Rawalpindi bench. His transfer charge describes a mechanism he experienced: a transfer decided elsewhere, a seniority reset, and a new posting. Elevated to the Islamabad High Court bench in December 2015, he became known for rulings on human rights and enforced disappearances. Due to retire on February 10, 2032, he leaves more than five years early.
The fourth resignation in the sequence
Before Kayani, Supreme Court Justices Syed Mansoor Ali Shah and Athar Minallah, and Lahore High Court Justice Shams Mehmood Mirza, resigned in 2025, also citing concerns about the changes. The sequence turns a single resignation into a pattern that future appointments will be read against. The wider dispute goes back to March 2024, when six Islamabad High Court judges alleged interference by intelligence agencies. The 26th Amendment then increased executive and parliamentary influence over senior judicial appointments, and the 27th changed transfer rules and created a Federal Constitutional Court.
The same week brought a reminder of how active the courts remain. Mazari and Chattha were sentenced to 10 years by an anti-terrorism court on October 29, while Justice Munib Akhtar took oath as acting chief justice.
Three decisions that must follow
The first decision belongs to the President, to whom the resignation was addressed. Acceptance would formally end Kayani’s tenure and open the vacancy. No official government response has been reported so far, so watch whether acceptance comes quickly or after a delay.
The second decision is the vacancy, filled through the Judicial Commission of Pakistan. The appointment will be read as a test of the very system Kayani criticised. If the process is seen as independent, it weakens his charge. If it is seen as executive driven, it strengthens it. The third decision concerns his pending work: cases on his roster, including matters at the Rawalpindi bench, will need reassignment, and waiting litigants will feel the practical cost first.
Why the litigant is the centre of the letter
The most quoted lines concern the amendments and executive control. The most original line is about someone else: Kayani says the needs of those seeking justice have too often been neglected, while other actors have become the beneficiaries of a system intended to serve them. That reverses the usual resignation frame.
Read that way, the letter sets its own test. If the vacancy is filled promptly, if pending cases move without long delay, and if the appointment process is visibly independent, the system will have answered the litigant’s concern even while losing the judge who raised it. If those three things stall, Kayani’s warning will be harder to dismiss. Readers following national news from Pakistan can track those markers in the weeks ahead.
