PESHAWAR, Nov 2: After a delay of about an year, the NWFP government finally issued a notification on Friday for filling six posts of additional and deputy advocates general.

According to the notification, on three vacant posts of additional advocates general, advocates of the Peshawar High Court - Mussarat Hillali, Hamid Durrani and Sardar Shaukat Hayat - have been appointed.

Similarly, on the posts of deputy advocates general, the appointed officers are: Ali Jamil Qazi, Akhtar Naveed and Ahmad Jan.

The office of the Advocate General had been facing serious crisis for the last one year due to non-appointment of officers on the said posts. Before the issuance of this notification only an additional advocate general Imtiaz Ahmad and a deputy advocate general Tariq Jawed, had been functioning apart from the Advocate General, Qazi Rasheedul Haq.

Qazi Rasheedul Haq also conducts accountability cases due to which only the said two additional and deputy advocates general were to represent different benches in the high court. Now with the appointment of the six officers, the crisis would be resolved to a great extent.

The present appointments remained a bone of contention between different quarters for the last over six months. During the tenure of previous Advocate General Younas Tanoli, efforts were made for filling these posts, but due to some controversial steps the issue continued to linger on. For the first time senior lawyers were asked to appear before a selection committee, however, a number of advocates had declined, terming it their insult.

In the present appointments, the only woman, Mussarat Hillali, was the vice-chairperson of Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and her joining the AG’s office was surprising for many of her colleagues.

Similarly, Ali Jamil Qazi is the son of former Attorney General Qazi Mohammed Jamil. Advocate Ahmad Jan belongs to Mingora district and Akhter Naveed belongs to Peshawar. Hamid Durrani and Sardar Shaukat Hayat also practise at the Peshawar High Court.