ISLAMABAD - Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa Friday took oath of office as 26th Chief Justice of Pakistan after his predecessor Justice Saqib Nisar completed his stint on Thursday.
President Dr Arif Alvi administered oath of office to the new chief justice in a ceremony held at Aiwan-e-Sadr here.
The swearing-in ceremony was attended by Prime Minister Imran Khan, judges of the Supreme Court, members of the federal cabinet, Speaker National Assembly, Chairman Senate, three services chiefs, governors, lawyers and other dignitaries.
Reporting straight to work after his oath-taking, newly-appointed Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Asif Saeed Khosa hearing his first case dismissed an appeal seeking reduction in sentence awarded in drugs smuggling case.
The appeal was moved by Noor Muhammad, a resident of Mianwali challenging sentence awarded by the Lahore High Court in 2016.
Justice Khosa observed that the culprit was arrested in peddling of 2100-gm "Charas" (hashish form of cannabis) and trial court awarded four and half years sentence which was later maintained by the High Court.
He also observed that witnesses in the case were government employees who have no enmity with the culprit, moreover concerned laboratory also confirmed the samples of the drugs and subsequently maintaining the LHC's decision, rejected the appeal.
Senior judges of the superior judiciary from Nigeria, India, Canada and Turkey arrived with the 26th Chief Justice of Pakistan to attend the court proceedings in the court room Number 1 as international observers while Attorney General Anwar Mansoor Ali Khan, welcomed them.
Chief Justice Khosa replaced Chief Justice (retd) Mian Saqib Nisar, after his retirement on January 17 (Thursday). Khosa, 64, will serve as the chief justice for almost eleven months and will retire on December 20 this year.
Born on December 21, 1954 in Dera Ghazi Khan, Justice Asif Saeed Khosa received his master's degrees from the University of Punjab and LLM degree from Queens College at Cambridge in 1978.
He started his legal career after being enrolled as Advocate High Court in 1979 and Advocate Supreme Court in 1985. Over 600 cases he had conducted as advocate had been reported in various law reports.
To his credit, the newly sworn-in quinquagenarian Chief Justice of Pakistan has also four books and scores of articles and research papers on diverse constitutional and legal issues.
Asif Saeed Khosa was elevated to Judge of Lahore High Court in 1998 and Judge of Supreme Court in 2010. He had also acted as Chief Justice of Pakistan from June 05, 2017 to June 11, 2017, June 29, 2017 to July 05, 2017, May 14, 2018 to May 30, 2018 and December 17, 2018 to December 23, 2018.
During his legal career, Justice Asif Saeed Khosa decided about 55,000 cases over a period of more than nineteen and a half years so far.
Among his other distinctions also included; founding member of the SAARC LAW; Fellowship of the Commonwealth Judicial Education Institute, Halifax, Canada in 2006; elected member of the Board of Directors of the Commonwealth Judicial Education Institute, Halifax, Canada since June 2008; member of the Rhodes Scholarship Selection Committee for Pakistan since 2004; Incharge Judge of the Federal Judicial Academy, Islamabad, Pakistan since 2015; member of the Judicial Commission of Pakistan since 2015; member of the Supreme Judicial Council of Pakistan since 2015 and Chairman, Shariat Appellate Bench of the Supreme Court of Pakistan since 2016.
