Last day at court for Chief Justice

FOR MILLIONS OF PAKISTANIS, CHIEF JUSTICE DID WHAT WAS REALLY THE JOB OF THE GOVERNMENT

Find out Saqib Nisar’s five landmark decisions which affected the powerful as well as the ordinary people

Private schools were directed not to charge fees during the threemonth holidays, and medical colleges and universities were barred from raising tuition fees above a set limit.

Pakistan Chief Justice Saqib Nisar will hold court for the last time today, drawing to a close a career that saw him handing down landmark verdicts, which affected the powerful as well as ordinary people.

During his term as the most senior judge, from December 31, 2016 to January 17, 2019, Nisar remained a dynamic, vocal and proactive judge taking notice as well as action on a wide range of matters pertaining to public interest, human rights issues and matters pending for decades.

He was known for taking suo motu notice on a range of issues. Sometimes he took suo motu on frivolous issues such as the transfer of a police officer under political influence.

Stay of execution

He even took up the case of mobile phone airtime vendors charging members of the public extra money for top-ups.

However, many of his suo motu notices won him appreciation across the country. In one case the justice intervened after a federal minister’s aides tortured a poor neighbour’s family and sent them to jail. In another, he ordered the stay of execution of a mentally challenged convict in Lahore’s jail, while in a third case he handled the stopping of water companies from collecting hundreds and thousands of gallons of water without paying any tax.

For millions of apolitical Pakistanis, Nisar did what was really the job of the government.

Private schools were directed not to charge fees during the three-month holidays, and medical colleges and universities were barred from raising tuition fees above a set limit.

In another high-profile case, a former head of Pakistan Television and associate of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, Atta ul Haq Qasmi, was directed to return millions of rupees to the government exchequer after it was determined he had been illegally appointed.

Not only Qasmi, the former information minister Pervaiz Rashid and a former principal secretary to the ex-PM were also handed heavy fines.

Justice Nisar often reminded fellow judges not to take their jobs as merely an official duty, saying it was a great responsibility for which they would be held accountable.

Where his suo motu notices in matters of public interest won him praise among ordinary people, his spontaneous outbursts and ‘raids’ on hospitals, police stations, lower courts and even construction sites drew the ire of political parties and their workers.