Former SC judge Sarmad Jalal Osmany passes away

Former Supreme Court judge Sarmad Jalal Osmany passed away on Monday. He was 75. Justice Osmany had started his legal profession as an associate with a leading law firm in Karachi and worked there from 1979 to 1982. Then, he went to the USA to work with the law firm of Shearman & Sterling, New York City, from 1983 to 1984. He practised mostly in the international trade and banking area and established a law firm in 1985.

Justice Osmany was elevated as judge of the Sindh High Court in 1998 and became chief justice of the SHC in 2009. He was a member of the three-member SHC bench that heard the appeal of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif in the plane hijacking case in 2000.

He was also part of a SC larger bench in the Sindh High Court Bar Association case that declared former president Mushartaf’s November 2007 PCO as unconstitutional. He was a member of the SC bench that delivered judgments in several high- profile constitutional and public interest cases, including the Karachi law and order case.

According to the Supreme Court’s Karachi registry, the funeral prayer of Justice Osmany will be offered on April 22 after Namaz-e-Asr at Masjid-e-Hamza, DHA Phase VIII, off Khayaban-e-Qasim Karachi, and his burial will take place at a graveyard in DHA Phase VIII.