PESHAWAR: Three recently confirmed judges of the Peshawar High Court were administered oath by Chief Justice Qaiser Rashid Khan here on Thursday.

Justice Sahibzada Asadullah, Justice Mohammad Naeem Anwar and Justice Wiqar Ahmad were initially appointed additional judges in Aug 2019 for one year.

A few days ago, the Judicial Commission for Appointment of judges had recommended their confirmation, which was also approved by the Parliamentary Committee on the Appointment of Judges in the superior judiciary. The country’s president later appointed them as the confirmed judges of the high court.

The oath-taking ceremony was attended among others by the high court judges, members of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Bar Council, Peshawar High Court Bar Association president Bahlol Khattak, other cabinet members of the PHCBA and Peshawar District Bar Association, and senior lawyers.

Justice Sahibzada Asadullah was born in Swabi district on Apr 16, 1972, and had passed his secondary school examination in 1989. He had passed his intermediate examination from the Nisar Shaheed College, Risalpur, in 1991.

PHC has 14 judges against sanctioned strength of 20

Justice Sahibzada Asadullah received a master’s degree in English Literature before passing the LLB examination in 1999.

He was enrolled as an advocate of the Supreme Court in Oct 2012. He is well versed in criminal jurisprudence and constitutional matters. Before his elevation to the bench, he was one of the prominent lawyers of the province dealing with different categories of cases, especially criminal cases in the high court and Supreme Court.

Over 40 of his cases had been reported in different law journals.

He was an apolitical lawyer enjoying good reputation in the legal fraternity.

Justice Wiqar Ahmad Khan is a former additional advocate general and hails from Mardan district. He was born in Mar 1974. He completed his LLB degree in1998 and was appointed a civil judge in 1999.

However, he resigned in 2005 and began practising the law. He was enrolled as an advocate of the high court in 2006.

He was first made an additional advocate general during the previous PTI government in the province in 2013 and held the post until the last year. After the formation of the present PTI government in the province in 2018, he was again appointed as the AAG.

He represented the government in several important cases.

Hailing from Mansehra district, Justice Mohammad Naeem Anwar was born in June 1972. He got the licence to practise law in lower courts in 1999 and those of the high court and Supreme Court in 2001 and 2014, respectively.

Now, the Peshawar High Court has 14 judges against the sanctioned strength of 20.

Since the merger of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 2018, the legal fraternity has been demanding an increase in the sanctioned high court strength to efficiently deal with the cases of the tribal districts as well.

Published in Dawn, August 6th, 2021