ISLAMABAD: Chief Justice Tassaduq Hussain Jillani retired on Saturday after serving for over 10 years as a judge including a rather brief tenure as chief justice of the Supreme Court.

Justice Nasir-ul-Mulk, the senior most judge after him, has already been appointed new chief justice of Pakistan.

Justice Jillani was born on July 6, 1949 and completed Masters in Political Science from Forman Christian College and LLB from the University of Punjab, Lahore. He completed a course in constitutional law from the University of London at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies.

He started practice at the Multan district courts in 1974 and in 1976 was elected general secretary of the district bar association. He was elected member of the Punjab Bar Council in 1978 and appointed assistant advocate general of Punjab in July 1979.

He was enrolled as advocate of the Supreme Court in 1983 and was appointed additional advocate general of Punjab in 1993.

He took oath as a judge of the Lahore High Court on Aug 7, 1994 and was elevated as a judge of the Supreme Court on July 31, 2004 where he served till the imposition of the state of emergency on Nov 3, 2007.

As he refused to take a fresh oath, he was made dysfunctional.

He took oath again as a judge of the Supreme Court in 2008.

After Justice Jillani, Justice Mulk, Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja, Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali, Justice Saqib Nisar, Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa, Justice Gulzar Ahmed and Justice Umar Ata Bandial are due to become the chief justices in accordance with the seniority rule.

Published in Dawn, July 6th, 2014