Tributes paid to Justice Farooq Shah

The legal fraternity paid rich tributes to Justice Syed Mohammad Farooq Shah in a full court reference held on Wednesday on the eve of his retirement.

In his address on the occasion, Sindh High Court Chief Justice Ahmed Ali M Sheikh paid tribute to the services of Justice Shah for the judiciary and said he had delivered several landmark judgments and disposed of hundreds of jail appeals of prisoners.

Justice Shah said the bench and the bar had to play their role for the supremacy of the rule of the law.

He said extrajudicial killings and violations of the rights of prisoners were important issues, which needed to be addressed. He called for concrete steps to bring about reforms in prisons and urged the human rights organisations to take up issues regarding the miseries of prisoners and their families. Federal and provincial law officers, bar representatives also lauded the services of the Justice Shah for the judiciary and dispensation of the justice.

Justice Shah was elevated to SHC on June 27, 2012. He had protected rights of couples in free-will marriages and observed during hearings that before acting upon a complaint, the police were supposed to ascertain whether a couple has contracted free-will marriage. If they had, the police officials should keep aside all social considerations and not disrupt or interfere in the couple’s marital life, he had observed.

Justice Shah held that articles 35 and 9 of the constitution had declared that the state was duty-bound to protect couples who contracted marriages out of free will and forcible separation of spouses was the worst kind of violation of a couple’s fundamental rights.