Adliya Mein 44 Saal
By Agha Rafiq Ahmad Khan
Farid Publishers
ISBN 978-969-7827-65-7
294pp.  

When we speak of corruption, we associate it generally with politicians, business tycoons and bureaucrats. However, Justice (retd) Agha Rafiq Ahmad Khan’s book Adliya Mein 44 Saal breaks new ground by providing a detailed, personal account of the criminal — yes, criminal — atmosphere he was witness to during his long judicial career.

Author Agha’s portrayal of this phenomenon seems true because he was himself a victim of it. An honest man, he ruffled some feathers, was denied a salary for six months, lost his job and was ordered to be arrested. That he managed to come out of this bureaucratic bedlam and rise to the position of the chief justice of the Federal Shariat Court makes this book worth reading.

Proud of his family, the author confines himself till page 67 to his childhood and schooling in a manner that seems to tire out the reader, but the book then turns to personalities who mattered — Field Marshal Ayub Khan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (ZAB), Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi and others — with the author dwelling a great deal on Ayub’s anger at Bhutto in words that obviously the author doesn’t let us know.

This was, of course, much later, for there was a time when Bhutto was Ayub’s right hand man, held the important post of foreign minister and was secretary general of Ayub’s party, the ‘Convention’ Muslim League.

The book jumps in time when the author describes the shock he suffered on what for him, and for millions of people, was Bhutto’s “judicial murder.” The author was in his teens then and he graphically describes the scenes he saw of crying men and women, and the deserted roads he drove through.

An autobiographical take on the author’s 44-year experience in the judiciary presents a no-holds-barred view of the rot at the heart of politics, the bureaucracy and especially those entrusted with providing justice to common people

As he grew in stature, the author came in contact with men and women who played a major part in Pakistan’s history and included personalities such as Benazir Bhutto and Asif Ali Zardari. The book dwells on something quite normal in Pakistan — governments persecuting political rivals on trumped-up charges. Imagine, for instance, that Benazir was tried on a charge of terrorism. Asif Ali Zardari the author drew closer to and he makes sympathetic comments about him, such as reminding us that Zardari spent no less than 11 years in prison because his political rivals had the power to make him.

The reader has no choice but to revisit the tragedies that have been Pakistan’s lot, especially those afflicting the Bhutto family, with Benazir’s murder preceded by the carnage at Karsaz in Karachi, which killed nearly 200 people. There are also interesting episodes that throw light on the intricacies of human behaviour.

For example, a colonel told election officials not to get up when ZAB would come to get election documents. ZAB was no longer in power and the military regime headed by Gen Ziaul Haq had announced plans to hold elections, which were never held. However, when Bhutto turned up at the election office, the colonel who had cautioned the staff against getting up, stood up himself!

The book also reminds us of macabre incidents long forgotten, like a father slaughtering his son at Quaid-i-Azam’s mausoleum because he claimed he had been told in a dream to do so. The man was tried and hanged.

A considerable part of the book is, however, devoted to the hideous face of the bureaucracy in Pakistan — full of intrigues, jealousies, bullying, ethnic and tribal prejudices, and even violence or the threat of violence. The author describes the threats he had to face while on duty and his frequent transfers, which had nothing to do with good governance.

The contents of chapter 10 are a commentary on the lack of scruples in our bureaucracy and show how the highest in the judiciary abandon rules and regulations to advance personal and group interests and persecute others. Even the chief justice of Pakistan had no qualms of conscience in joining other judges to suspend the author and deny him a salary for six months.

In fact, one is shocked to read how politicians of a national stature worked hand in glove with a scoundrel like Jam Sadiq Ali, who succeeded in grabbing the Sindh chief minister’s position with an avowed aim, whose details and perversity require space we do not have here to dilate on.

While the author finally managed to rehabilitate himself in the judiciary, what is shocking for the reader is the absence of honesty among those who jostled for the highest posts in the judiciary. Even though he was part of the judiciary himself, author Agha minces no words to record for future generations how Sajjad Ali Shah became Sindh’s and later Pakistan’s chief justice and how the author helped him clinch that enviable position. Yet, as Chief Justice of Pakistan, Shah conspired against him. In fact, reading page after page of Adliya as it draws to a close, it feels like one is going through an Agatha Christie novel, as the plot thickens and cabals plan liquidations.

Chapter 13, entitled ‘Ehsaan Faramoshi’ [Ungratefulness], makes us wonder whether some of our judicial hands had come straight from Thomas Hobbes’ state of nature, as portrayed in Leviathan (“and the life of man… nasty, brutish and short”). Morality seemed to be a casualty, and those appointed by Benazir to top judicial positions turned against her. The author was bullied, asked to resign and offered a junior position. However, the finale was stupefying. Justice Shah himself fell.

The book obviously gives the author’s account of the trauma he went through, and there must be other versions. But whatever the truth, the overall picture we get about the judiciary is saddening. The sop is — the non-judicial part of our national life is no better.

The writer is Dawn’s External Ombudsman and an author

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, July 13th, 2025