PESHAWAR: Putting an end to the nine-day-long guessing game over the nomination of the caretaker chief minister for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Tuesday appointed Justice (retd) Dost Muhammad Khan to the post.
He will take oath as the sixth chief minister to head an interim set-up in the province. The ECP took the decision to appoint the 65-year-old Dost Muhammad Khan in a consultative meeting of the five-member commission on Tuesday.
His appointment was one more addition to the list of former judges being appointed to high public offices. Dost Muhammad, who retired on March 19, 2018 after completing his term as Supreme Court Judge, is among the judges who refused to take oath under the Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO) on November 3, 2007, turned down a number of offers to do so.
Considered as a thorough professional, Justice Dost Muhammad during his tenure as Chief Justice, Peshawar High Court (PHC), delivered several major judgments, including declaring US drone strikes as war crimes, disqualifying former President General Pervez Musharraf from contesting elections for life, terming fuel adjustment charges illegal, taking suo moto notice of women being barred from voting and ordering missing persons be shifted to internment centres.
Hailing from Bannu, he was born on March 20, 1953. He received his early education from Government High School No. 1 in Bannu. After graduating from the Government Post Graduate College, Bannu in 1974, he obtained law degree from Government Sindh Muslim Law College, Karachi in 1976.
As a lawyer he served in lower and high courts as well as the Supreme Court of Pakistan since 1976. He was elected President of District Bar Association, Bannu from1986-87 and President of Peshawar High Court Bar Association, Dera Ismail Khan Bench from 1999-2000.
Justice Dost Muhammad was appointed as additional judge of the Peshawar High Court on September 10, 2002 and elevated as permanent judge of on September 10, 2003. He took oath as Chief Justice of the Peshawar High Court on November 17, 2011 where he served for two years and two months before being elevated to the Supreme Court of Pakistan on January 31, 2014.
The ECP appointed Dost Muhammad as caretaker chief minister under article 224A (3) after the matter was referred to it by the six-member Parliamentary Committee constituted by Speaker Asad Qaiser on June 1.
The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government at one time appeared to have taken the lead among the four provinces to name the caretaker chief minister when leader of the opposition Lutfur Rehman, who belongs to Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) in the provincial assembly and leader of the House Pervez Khattak on May 26 agreed to nominate JUI-F-proposed businessman Manzoor Afridi as caretaker chief minister.
His nomination came two days ahead of the expiry of the five-year term of the provincial assembly that was to end on May 28.
To the astonishment of all and sundry, the little-known Manzoor Afridi was nominated from among three other senior and well-known candidates, including former bureaucrats Himayatullah Khan and Ejaz Ahmed Qureshi recommended by Pervez Khattak and Justice (R) Dost Muhammad, whose name was proposed by Lutfur Rehman.
However, the nomination of Manzoor Afridi was withdrawn after Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan didn't approve it in the wake of mounting pressure through the mainstream and social media against his nomination.
After a number of meetings, the opposition and government representatives led by Pervez Khattak and Lutfur Rehman failed to reach consensus to name another caretaker chief minister as both sides refused to budge from their respective stances.
The former chief minister on June 1 wrote a letter to the speaker of provincial assembly to form a committee to decide the matter. The speaker provincial assembly, Asad Qaiser, formed the parliamentary committee under Article 224-A of the Constitution the same day. It included three nominees of the PTI - Shah Farman, Atif Khan and Mehmood Khan - and JUI-F lawmakers Mufti Fazal Ghafoor, Noor Saleem Khan and Mehmood Bhittani.
The committee met at the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa House in Islamabad on June 2 and after failing to reach a consensus on the name of the caretaker chief minister decided to refer the matter to the Election Commission under Article 224A(3). After exhausting all constitutional provisions, the matter was resolved by the ECP by appointing retired Justice Dost Muhammad as caretaker chief minister.