LAHORE, Aug 1: Justice Malik Muhammad Qayyum (retired), who has been appointed as attorney general, was born to former Supreme Court judge Justice Muhammad Akram on Dec 18, 1944.

Justice Akram was also a member of the five-member Lahore High Court bench which had handed down capital punishment to former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in a unanimous decision.

Malik Qayyum started his career as legal practitioner in 1964.

In 1970, he was elected as secretary of District Bar Association, Lahore, while 10 years later in 1980, he became president of the bar.

He was elected member of the Punjab Bar Council for the period 1984-88 and in February 1984 he was appointed deputy attorney-general, the office he held till his elevation as judge of the Lahore High Court on Oct 26, 1988.

In addition to his responsibilities as the high court judge, he was also nominated as Punjab Local Election Commission member.

He also remained chairman of the High Court Rules & Orders Committee and Library Committee as well as administration judge of the Computer Cell when it was set up in 1991.

Justice Qayyum had to tender his resignation as LHC judge when he, along with Justice Rashid Aziz, was declared as “biased” by the Supreme Court in 2001 in the hearing of a corruption case against former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

Malik Qayyum then started practice in the Supreme Court. He was elected president of the Supreme Court Bar Association in the year 2005. He was also counsel of former Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif in a case filed in the apex court for return of the latter to Pakistan from exile.

His brother, Muhammad Pervaiz Malik, contested 2002 polls and became MNA from the platform of the PML-N, while his brother-in-law Mian Misbahur Rehman is a district level leader of the PPP.

Just a month ago, Justice Qayyum had himself wished to contest the next polls if the PML-N granted him a ticket for the National Assembly from a Kasur constituency, his hometown.

He appeared as the government’s counsel in the presidential reference against Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry and lost the case.