LAHORE: Former judge of the Lahore High Court (LHC) Malik Muhammad Qayyum passed away on Friday. He was 78.

His funeral prayers were offered at Jamia Ashrafia after Friday prayers. He was laid to rest in the Miani Sahib graveyard.

Members of the legal and political fraternity attended his funeral.

Justice Qayyum was born on Dec 18, 1944, to Muhammad Akram, who was also a judge of the LHC and the Supreme Court.

Justice Akram was a member of a five-judge bench of the LHC that handed down death penalty to former prime minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.

Justice Qayyum had started his career as a lawyer in 1964. He was elected secretary of the Lahore Bar Association in 1970 and its president in 1980. He was working as a deputy attorney general when the government elevated him as judge of the LHC in 1988.

Justice Qayyum shot to fame after he held a judicial inquiry into the allegations of match fixing against top cricketers of the country during late 90s. He had slapped a life time ban on test cricketer Saleem Malik after charges proved against him.

Justice Qayyum had to tender his resignation in 2001 after the Supreme Court termed his conduct ‘biased’ while deciding an appeal of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto against her conviction in a corruption case.

Later, he resumed legal practice and was elected president of the Supreme Court Bar Association in 2005. Then president late Gen Pervez Musharraf had appointed Qayyum as attorney general in 2007.

Justice Qayyum had previously defended Musharraf in most of the cases since the outbreak of the judicial crisis following the imposition of emergency in November 2007.

He was the brother of late Parvez Malik, a senior politician of the PML-N and his son Barrister Ahmad Qayyum is a former secretary of the Lahore High Court Bar Association and a member of the Punjab Bar Council.

Published in Dawn, February 18th, 2023