Tributes paid to late judge

MANSEHRA: The lawyer fraternity on Wednesday paid rich tributes to former chief justice of Gilgit Baltistan Chief Court for his services to the judiciary.

“I have no words to pay homage to the late justice Zeenat Khan as a great human being and jurist because he never compromised on justice and always upheld the sanctity of bench and bar,” Hayat Ali Shah, the director-general of the Federal Judicial Academy Pakistan, said while addressing the ceremony arranged to mark the 23rd death anniversary of late jurist here.

The lawyer fraternity, including late Khan’s pupils, known to be Zeenatkhel and retired judges showed up at the ceremony and later in the day laid a floral wreath at his grave and offered fateha.

Late Justice Zeenat Khan had breathed his last as the chief justice of the Gilgit-Baltistan Chief Court. Hayat Ali Shah said he had worked with the late jurist as his subordinate in the judiciary and bar and always remained impressed by his humility and uncontroversial verdicts.

A former registrar of the Islamabad High Court and Supreme Appellate Court of Gilgit-Baltistan, Niaz Mohammad Khan, said the late jurist served the judiciary at the Peshawar High Court and GB and other parts of the country.

“He always decided cases on merit as justice was supreme in his eyes, and deeds,” he recalled.Senior lawyers, former presidents of the district bar and KP bar council, Fida Mohammad Khan and Munir Hussain Lughmani, said they learnt a lot from the late jurist.

Justice Zeenat Khan’s younger brother Mohammad Wajid Khan, also a senior lawyer and president of district bar Rafique Yusuf addressed the ceremony and paid tributes to him.