ISLAMABAD: Justice Athar Minallah on Wednesday assumed the office of Islamabad High Court (IHC) chief justice.

After taking oath to his office, he appointed Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani as the inspection judge for the lower courts and Justice Mian Gul Hassan Aurangzeb as the inspection judge for special courts.

Justice Minallah’s oath was administered by President Dr Arif Alvi at the Aiwan-i-Sadr in Islamabad and was attended by federal ministers, parliamentarians and judges of the IHC.

Justice Minallah is the third chief justice of the IHC since it was established in Jan 2011.

Justice Minallah is the third IHC chief justice since it was established in Jan 2011

The outgoing chief justice, Mohammad Anwar Khan Kasi, retired on Nov 27 after attaining the age of superannuation.

Justice Minallah held meetings with elected representatives of local lawyers and with judges of sessions courts and discussed issues related to the subordinate judiciary.

He also discussed with them the measures that may be adopted to facilitate genuine litigants, saying that petitioners are the real stakeholders in the judicial system.

The IHC chief justice talked about the issue of frivolous petitions and said habitual litigants waste the courts’ time which should have been given to genuine litigants.

Justice Minallah appointed Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani as an inspection judge for the lower courts, the IHC’s first since it was established in 2011. These courts deal with routine civil and criminal cases.

The new chief justice appointed Justice Mian Gul Hassan Aurangzeb as the inspection judge for special courts such as that of the Federal Investigation Agency, control of narcotic substances and other tribunals situated in the federal judicial complex.

Justice Minallah separated old cases from recently instituted ones in order to clear the backlog and issued directions to the Registrar’s Office for placing them at regular intervals before the available benches.

The newly appointed chief justice is the eldest son of Nasrum Minallah, who remained commissioner during the 1960s and 70s.

He is the son-in-law of Justice Safdar Shah, who was part of the bench which convicted and sentenced former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto but Justice Shah wrote a dissenting note against the conviction for which he faced the wrath of Gen Ziaul Haq.

Justice Minallah joined Pakistan Customs and rose to senior positions but later resigned and started practicing law.

Following the sacking of former chief justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, he joined the lawyers’ movement for the restoration of the judiciary.

However, after Justice Chaudhry’s restoration, he became a critic of the judiciary because of excessive suo motu cases which led to the pendency of routine cases.

Justice Minallah was appointed as IHC judge in June 2014 and is considered one of the finest judges in the superior judiciary.

In the last few years, he authored landmark judgements in matters related to civil litigation including real estate, criminal cases, the environment and missing persons.

Published in Dawn, November 29th, 2018