OBITUARY: Shah’s tenure as cj saw attack on sc
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 C...
