Justice Dost Mohammad Khan, a former Peshawar High Court chief justice and a judge of the Supreme Court, will hang up his robes today (March 19) after remaining on the bench for around 16 years during which he had delivered several important and high-profile judgments, especially related to human rights.

Well-versed in criminal jurisprudence, a former president of PHC Bar Association Dera Ismail Khan Bench, Justice Dost Mohammad had not taken oath under the Provisional Constitution Order when emergency was imposed in Nov 2007 by retired General Pervez Musharraf.

He was elevated as an additional judge of PHC on Sept 10, 2002. A year later, he was confirmed as a judge of the high court and subsequently he was appointed as PHC chief justice on Nov 17, 2011.

During his stint as the PHC chief justice he and the high court had remained in the limelight because of his activism. He was elevated to the Supreme Court on Jan 31, 2014. He had assumed charge as PHC chief justice at a time when the court was replete with cases of “enforced disappearances.”

He took up that challenge and through his orders made it clear to the quarters concerned, including intelligence agencies and police, they had to act in the limits provided under the Constitution.

In several of the missing persons’ cases, orders were issued for registration of FIRs. At that time, it had become a routine practice that the local police used to accompany officials of other law enforcing agencies for picking up suspects, but before the court they always expressed ignorance.

However, on May 2, 2012, a bench headed by Justice Dost Mohammad had directed the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief secretary to ask his subordinate departments not to assist intelligence agencies in illegal activities, including illegal detentions. In pursuance to that order the KP chief secretary had ordered the civil administration and police in the province not to arrest and detain a person and not to enter private lodgings without proper sanction of law.

For the first time, the administration provided a list of over 1,000 persons who had been shifted to different notified internment centres in 2012, as the high court had directed the relevant officials that the court would not tolerate any illegal detention facilities maintained by the security agencies and those who were in their custody should be kept in the internment centres notified under the Action (in aid of civil power) regulation, 2011, two regulations introduced for FATA and PATA.

Before his elevation to the Supreme Court, the high court was informed by the government agencies that 700 more persons were shifted to internment centres.

On different occasions the court had summoned the then secretaries of defence and interior and provincial high-ups, including provincial police officer.

In Aug 2012 the high court had taken notice of media reports that 26 bodies mostly stuffed in gunnysacks were dumped in different areas. Later, several other bodies were found and it transpired that several of the dead were ‘missing persons’.

Most of those deceased persons were starved to death. While the police remained clueless in those cases, the police high-ups had told the court that after they had taken notice of the issue there was significant reduction in such cases.

One of the most important judgments delivered by Justice Dost Mohammad as PHC chief justice was concerning the US drone strikes in Pakistan.

The court, while accepting four writ petitions, had ruled on May 9, 2013, these drone strikes as a war crime.

The court had issued directives to the government of Pakistan and security forces to ensure stoppage of such strikes in future, including taking up the issue before the UN Security Council and the General Assembly. The bench had directed that the federal government and its security forces should ensure that in future such drone strikes were not conducted within the territory of Pakistan.

An important case decided by a full-bench headed by Justice Dost Mohammad was about the disqualification of former president retired General Pervez Musharraf. The bench had on April 30, 2013, placed lifetime ban on Mr Musharraf from becoming member of parliament and provincial assembly and termed him an opportunist who had no respect for law and the Constitution.

The bench had ruled that Pervez Musharraf had twice trampled the Constitution and after imposing emergency on Nov 3, 2007, he placed the Chief Justice of Pakistan and around 50 judges under house arrest along with their family members.

The court had dismissed several petitions of Pervez Musharraf challenging an order of the election appellate tribunal through which he was disqualified from contesting National Assembly elections from NA-32, Chitral, from where his nomination papers were earlier accepted by the returning officer concerned for the 2013 general elections.

As a chief justice, he had taken suo motu notices of important issues, including the barring of women from casting votes during by-elections on Aug 22, 2013; targeted killings on sectarian ground; mysterious killing of a woman inside Lady Reading Hospital; purchase of substandard hepatitis curing vaccines by the health department; encroachments of graveyards by land mafia, etc.

Later, the Supreme Court had restricted the exercise of suo motu powers by the high court chief justices.

In another important human rights issue, the high court had directed the federal government to make suitable amendments in the law for regulating the sale and purchase of acids as the incidents of throwing acid on women were increasing. Unfortunately, the directives of the high court had not been followed by the federal government and the desired amendments have yet to be made in the law.

The KP Elimination of Custom of Ghag Act, 2013, which outlawed the customary practice of ‘ghag’ was also enacted on the directives of a high court bench headed by Justice Dost Mohammad.

The most important administrative achievement of Justice Dost Mohammad as chief justice of the high court was the setting up of the KP Judicial Academy in July 2013. Since its establishment the academy has imparted training to hundreds of judicial officers as well as other stakeholders of the justice system.

The academy has also been running an FM radio station for creating legal awareness among its listeners.

“He is a daring judge who could stand to any sorts of pressure and had delivered judgments with his independent mind,” said advocate Mohammad Ayaz Khan, a former secretary general of PHC Bar Association.

He said that his stint as PHC chief justice would be remembered for longtime as he had always given a passionate hearing to lawyers appearing before him.

He said that the setting up of a human rights cell in the high court showed his penchant for the fundamental rights guaranteed under the Constitution.

Published in Dawn, March 19th, 2018