LAHORE, March 19: Legal experts and office-bearers of bar associations appreciated on Monday the resignation of Justice Jawwad S Khwaja. Speaking at press conferences, the bar representatives termed the resignation a positive sign towards a change in the country, adding that the judge had set a precedent for other judges to follow.
Senior lawyer and senator Sardar Muhammad Lateef Khan Khosa termed the resignation a first drop of rain. He congratulated the judge and said that lawyers’ community also appreciated this gesture. He said the resignation would give a boost to the ongoing campaign.
Justice Khwaja, who had also taken oath under President Musharraf’s PCO after the 1999 military takeover, was eleventh on the seniority list of the 36 sitting judges of the high court.
During his eight-year stay in office, the judge had taken up some important cases, including the registration of an FIR against former chief minister Shahbaz Sharif in a police encounter case. He had granted stay order against the new evaluation table of property tax besides abolishing service charges on mobile phones.
Later, the property tax case was withdrawn from him and entrusted to another judge, who decided the matter in favour of the government by dismissing hundreds of petitions of citizens.
Justice Khwaja had also challenged the LHC chief justice’s discretionary powers to transfer high court judges to other benches working at Rawalpindi, Multan and Bahawalpur.
He had pleaded that the chief justice should not have such power and some rules should be devised for transfer of the judges to other benches.
During his tenure, he would not attended LHC ceremonies and preferred to spend time in disposing of cases, which were small in number on his daily cause list due to some unexplained reasons.
Senior lawyer Hamid Khan, who worked with Justice Khwaja for 22 years as practicing lawyer, said that he had always found him a very sound and professional lawyer.
Born on Sept 10, 1950 in Wazirabad, Justice Khwaja graduated from Forman Chirstian College, and did his LLB from the Punjab University in 1973. He did LLM from Berkley University, California, in 1975.
He started his career as an advocate of high court in 1975 and got practicing license of Supreme Court in 1985. He also served as a visiting lecturer at the Punjab University Law College from 1975 to 1986.
‘Not a right move’
LAHORE, March 19: Former high court bar president Syed Afzal Haider says resignations are not a right move and there are other options for the judges to register their protest.
He suggests that the judges should either go on leave or opt for a pen-down strike. “It is a better way to lodge protest. Once somebody resigns, it is history.”
He said the judges should fight against what he termed oppression by the state, right by sitting in their offices.