RETIRED Justice Sajjad Ali Shah, who passed away after a long illness on Tuesday, was among the few adjudicators of the country who were equally resented by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) for decisions he made during his term as the Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP).

The two political parties had their own reasons to dislike him. As the country’s top judge he first endorsed the dismissal of the Benazir Bhutto-led PPP government in 1996 by then President Farooq Leghari.

And when Nawaz Sharif came to power in 1997 he initiated contempt proceedings against the elected prime minister. He headed the bench when PML-N supporters stormed the Supreme Court (SC) in November 1997 and disrupted the contempt of court proceedings against Mr Sharif. It led to a nasty fight between the two pillars of the state and eventually cost him his job.

The octogenarian was also the only judge who wrote a dissenting note when an 11-member SC bench, headed by CJP Nasim Hasan Shah, restored the first government of Nawaz Sharif in May 1993.

While politicians may have considered him their nemesis, the legal fraternity has acknowledged his judicial services while some saw a true judge in him.

“I think he was a strong-willed person...If he made up his mind he stuck to his opinions,” said retired Supreme Court judge Wajihuddin Ahmed. “His contribution to the judicial process in Pakistan was quite substantive.”

Islamabad High Court Bar Association President Arif Chaudhry was all praise for the departed soul and described him as a humble, down-to-earth person... “a great man in his own right”.

“I have yet to see a judge of his calibre,” he observed, adding, “We have been deprived of an eminent judge, a law giver and a philosopher. The vacuum left by him will be filled after a long time.”

Senior advocate Shahid Hamid said that Justice Shah was a very fine judge who always afforded a patient hearing to the parties before him. “I had the privilege of appearing before him many times.”

But senior counsel Hamid Khan had a different view.

He regretted that his entire tenure as judge, as well as the chief justice of the country, was “very peculiar and an unfortunate chapter” in the country’s judicial history.

Mr Khan recalled that Justice Shah superseded three judges of the apex court when he was appointed chief justice by the Benazir Bhutto government and everybody felt that the late Justice Saad Saud Jan, who was senior to him, had been wronged.

According to the counsel, Justice Shah’s tenure was marred by controversy and serious differences with fellow judges. The discord ultimately led to his removal by a 10-judge bench of his own court, headed by former CJP Saeeduzzaman Siddiqui. The bench had held his appointment as void ab initio.

“This is a sad chapter of the history of our judiciary,” he observed.

Born on Feb 17, 1933, in Karachi, Justice Shah acquired his initial education from the Sindh Madressatul Islam. After graduating from Sindh Muslim College in 1956, he left for England and was admitted to Lincoln’s Inn. He was enrolled as a lawyer of the high court of West Pakistan in 1961.

Justice Wajihuddin Ahmed recalled that he was directly appointed as a district and sessions judge in 1967 by his father Justice Waheeduddin Ahmed, who was then the Chief Justice of West Pakistan.

Justice Shah also served as joint secretary in the law ministry in 1974. He was appointed as a judge of the Sindh High Court (SHC) in 1987.

Three years later, he was elevated to the apex court. Finally, he was appointed as CJP in 1994.

The late judge had written several books, including his autobiography Law Courts in a Glass House which was published in 2001.

Expressing grief over his death, the Sindh Bar Council announced that work would remain suspended in courts acr­oss the province on Wednesday.

His funeral prayers were offered at Imambargah Yasrab in DHA late on Tuesday night.

Supreme Court Justices Amir Hani Muslim, Faisal Arab, Qazi Faez Isa and many other judges and lawyers attended his funeral.

Justice Shah was laid to rest at Wadi-i-Hussain graveyard on Supe­rhighway.

Tahir Siddiqui in Karachi and Nasir Iqbal in Islamabad also contributed to this report.

Published in Dawn, March 8th, 2017