Quetta: President Arif Alvi appointed retired justice Amanullah Khan Yasinzai as governor of Balochistan on Wednesday upon the advice of Prime Minister Imran Khan, according to a Cabinet Division notification.

Several names were under consideration for the slot after the resignation of Mohammad Khan Achakzai, who served as Balochistan governor for five years.

Prime Minister Khan, after consulting Chief Minister Jam Kamal and parties in the ruling coalition, approved the name of Justice Yasinzai.

The PTI leadership had last month named Dr Amir Mohammad Khan Jogezai as the governor of Balochistan, but withdrew his name after the National Accountability Bureau disclosed that Dr Jogezai was under investigation and it would file a reference against him soon.

Justice Yasinzai was born in 1954. After completing his basic education in Quetta, he went to Lahore and obtained his law degree from the Punjab University.

He entered the legal profession in 1981. He joined the Pakistan Peoples Party after entering politics during the early 1990s.

Mr Yasinzai was appoin­ted additional judge of the Balochistan High Court in 1997.

He was appointed chief justice of the court in 2005 and served in this capacity till 2009.

Justice Yasinzai was among those judges who took the oath under the Provisional Constitution Order (PCO) in 2007 after then president Pervez Musharraf had imposed emergency on Nov 3 that year.

However, he resigned as chief justice, along with four other BHC judges, after a decision by the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) regarding the PCO judges.

References were sent to the SJC against Amanullah Yasinzai and four other judges of the Balochistan High Court, but all the five judges had resigned before the start of the proceedings.

Published in Dawn, October 4th , 2018