Mr Justice Asif Saeed Khosa has replaced Mr Justice Saqib Nisar as Chief Justice of Pakistan. He retires at the end of the year, so if he wishes to be more than a name on the list, he should act quickly. Chief Justice Khosa has not got a judicial pedigree, as does Mr Justice Saqib Nisar, whose father was a judge of the Lahore High Court, but his wife does. She is the daughter of Mr Justice Naseem Hassan Shah, who retired as Chief Justice of Pakistan. Imran had a merely formal role in the appointment, which was made by seniority, but when Imran was winning the World Cup back in 1992, Chief Justice Shah was head of the PCB. The wheel turns, and there’s a World Cup in the UK. We know that the team, unfortunately, is a bunch of corrupt elements. They threw the series against South Africa so that Mian Nawaz and other N-Leaguers he chose, could bet on the results. By the way, Mian Nawaz was PM then, the same Nawaz who was restored as PM after being dismissed.

Perhaps the Pakistan victory over South Africa in the 1st ODI was in celebration of Chief Justice Khosa’s elevation, though everyone knows the team as a whole is in Mian Nawaz’s pocket, as shown by the disgraceful showing in the Tests. Even during the ODI, the way Sarfraz threw away his wicket showed him to be on the Sharifs’ payroll.

Mr Justice Khosa is probably a strong law-and-order man. His brother Tariq Masood Khosa was a career police officer, and while it is unlikely that he himself interrogated suspects by the time-honoured means of beating the suspect to within an inch of his life, it is likely that he supervised such interrogations. Policemen have a bleak view of the universe, and maybe the new Chief Justice shares in it. If he does, then the case of Naqeebullah Mehsud may be swiftly processed. ne awaits quotations. When removing Yousaf Reza Gilani, Mr Justice Khosa quoted Khalil Gibran. When removing Mian Nawaz, he quoted Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, so as to quote Balzac.

Literary quotations apart (is The Godfather literature? Well, now that Bob Dylan has been awarded the Nobel, maybe we can expect Mr Justice Khosa to quote from Ice T, Dr Dre or some other rapper), Mr Justice Khosa has said that decisions would be proper, not popular. That was being generally taken to mean that suo motu jurisdiction would be sparingly exercised. It was also taken to mean that the Supreme Court was getting out of the Dam-building business.

Will those who donated to the Dam Fund be able to get their money back? That is the question being asked by all those who thought they would be able to get away with photoshopping the head of the new CJP onto that of the old one in the photo of them handing over a cheque for a vast amount. You know, the photo that is prominently on display both in their drawing-room and their office.

For everyone else, the Sahiwal massacre was a horror, and a test for the Buzdar government. But for the new CJP, it was a test of whether he would take suo motu notice. One suspects he won’t, because of his brother saying what a great job the CTD is doing. Besides, to quote Lenin, you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.

An example of a judicial decision that was proper, but not popular, came in India the other day, when Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, a guru and cult leader, got it in the neck for the murder of Ram Chander Chhatrapati, the journalist who revealed the rapes of female disciples that got Gurmeet Singh in jail for 20 years, a sentence he is presently serving. He will have to serve a life-term for the murder, along with Kuldeep Singh, Nirmal Singh and Kishan Lal, who also got life terms. As the names would indicate, his Sacha Sauda cult was basically a Sikh thing, and despite the Rahim part of his name, he didn’t attract many Muslim followers, if any. As for the Ram part, Sikhs follow Hindu family law anyhow, and there is even a tradition among some Punjabi Hindu families of bringing up a boy as a Sikh, in fulfilment of a vow, very often for the birth of a son. We are almost all the descendants of someone brought up in a Hindu home, who converted in adulthood to Islam, and even though the conversion was far in the past, there’s still a lot of Hindu in us. So imagine how Hindu are Sikhs, with constant infusions coming in. Though it does seem a little weird, deciding the religion of one’s child to be different from one’s own.

I assume that the new CJP can wake up and smell the coffee, and can do so for the rest of his term. It might not be possible forever, as wild coffee species are coming close to extinction. Climate change is being blamed, even though US President Trump has identified this as a Chinese conspiracy to stop the USA becoming great again. So the Chinese are conspiring against coffee. Interesting.

The resignation of Punjab Mines and Minerals Minister Hafiz Ammar Yasir has been handed in to PML(Q) chief Ch Shujaat Hussain, not to the Chief Minister or the Governor, whose signature is needed to make it legal. Hafiz Ammar is the PML(Q) member in a 35-member Cabinet, so his resignation because he hasn’t been allowed to do his job makes it more important than if it was one of the crowd of PTI ministers or independents. This is not the first time there has been trouble between the coalition partners, which has seen Ch Pervez Elahi back as Speaker. He is the first person to return to the Speakership (Manzoor Wattoo was elected Speaker thrice, but at all times consecutively), and apparently wants to be the second to return to the Punjab Chief Ministership (Shehbaz Sharif had three terms, but two were consecutive).