Justice Khosa to serve as CJP for 11 months two days

ISLAMABAD: Justice Asif Saeed Khosa will serve as Chief Justice of Pakistan for 11 months and two days to retire on December 20 this year.

He takes oath of the exalted office on January 18 after the superannuation of the incumbent top judge, Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, who was sworn in as chief justice on December 31, 2016 and worked in this office for two years and 18 days.

Justice Khosa’s profile, uploaded on the Supreme Court Website, says he decided about 55,000 cases over a period of more than 19 and a half years so far.

He had headed a five-member bench that had adjudicated upon the Panama case against ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif last year after holding several day to day hearings. Asif Saeed Khosa, Saqib Nisar and Khawaja Muhammad Sharif, who were prominent practicing lawyers in the nineties, were sworn in as judges of the Lahore High Court (LHC) the same day in May 1998.

Of them, Justice Khawaja Sharif became the senior most LHC judge followed by Justice Saqib Nisar and Justice Asif Saeed Khosa because of their ages. When such simultaneous selections are made, anybody senior in age becomes senior judge. However, when a junior judge at a high court is elevated to the Supreme Court before his seniors are brought there, he becomes senior to them at the apex court.

It was a mere coincidence that Asif Saeed Khosa and Saqib Nisar were made judges of the LHC the same day in May 1998 and were moved to the Supreme Court on one day, February 18, 2010. Because of being firstborn, Justice Saqib Nisar became senior to Justice Khosa at the apex court as well. It was for this reason that he was named as the chief justice before Justice Khosa.