Javed Iqbal (judge, born 1946)


Javed Iqbal is the chairman of the National Accountability Bureau of Pakistan, in office since 8 October 2017. He is also a retired Senior Justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan and a philosopher.
A jurist and professor of law by profession, he served as the Senior Justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan from 2004 until his retirement in 2011. Prior to the appointment at the Supreme Court, Justice Iqbal shortly tenured as the Chief Justice of the Balochistan High Court which lasted only a month.
During his career as jurist, he has heard and led high-profile cases, including the case of suspension of fellow chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and the trial of missing persons in 2012. His credential led to the government appointing him as a chairman of the Abbottabad Commission to find out the preludes and causes of the unilateral raid conducted by the United States in Abbottabad, Khyber Pakhyunkhwa Province of Pakistan in 2011. After carefully studying the case, Justice Iqbal authored the papers over this issue which was submitted to the Prime Minister of Pakistan in 2013.

Biography

Early life and education

Javed Iqbal was born on 1 August 1946 & raised in Quetta. After graduating from the Sandman High School in Quetta, he moved to Lahore, Punjab Province to study law.
Admitted at the Punjab University, he obtained LLB degree in 1968, and MA degree in political science in 1970 from the Punjab University. For his advanced studies, Iqbal went to Australia where he attended the University of Western Australia, subsequently submitting his thesis to obtained LLM degree in International law in 1971.

Professorship and judicature career

In 1971, he moved to his native city, Quetta, where he became Public prosecutor and government pleader at the Balochistan High Court. In 1973, he joined the law branch of the Government of Balochistan Province which he retained until 1977. Iqbal later acted as the Deputy Secretary at the Law Department in 1981 and later served as the Officiating Secretary Law till 1982. The same year he resigned from the provincial government's legal branch after accepting the professorship in law at the Balochistan University and became honorary lecturer at the Balochistan University.
In 1982, he was appointed as a session judge at the district court, and gave verdicts in anti-corruption and custom cases. In 1985, Iqbal attended the International Islamic University in Islamabad where he gained master's degree in Islamic law where his thesis contained the work on jurisprudence in Islamic Faqīh and Sharia laws, in 1987. During the same period, he attended an advanced course National Institute of Public Administration In 1988, he was also appointed as the Judicial Member, Income-Tax Appellate Tribunal, but the Government of Balochistan did not relieve him. In 1990, he became Registrar of the Balochistan High Court which he retained until 1993.

Senior Justice

Chief Justice, Balochistan High Court

In 1993, Justice Iqbal was elevated as additional judge at the Balochistan High Court and was confirmed as "justice" by the Governor of Balochistan Province in 1995. In 1999, he was one of the judges in the country who retook their oaths under the Provisional Constitutional Order, following the aftermath of the military coup d'état staged by Chairman joint chiefs General Pervez Musharraf. On immediate effect, he was appointed as the Chief Justice of Balochistan High Court on 4 February 2000; subsequently his promotion papers were approved by President Rafiq Tarar. However, this promotion was short-lived when Justice Iqbal was elevated as a "Senior Justice" of the Supreme Court of Pakistan on 28 April 2000.

Supreme Court appointments

When the presidential reference against Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry was filed on 9 March 2007, Iqbal served as acting Chief Justice of Pakistan from 9 March 2007 till 23 March 2007.
Iqbal refused to take oath on Provisional Constitutional Order on 3 November 2007. As the result he was removed from the Supreme Court along with eleven other judges.
Later he was appointed to the position of chairman of the Press Council of Pakistan for three years on 11 November 2007. He announced on 12 April 2008 that he had resigned from that position. On 17 March 2009 as the result of the lawyer and civil society movement for restoration of judiciary, Justice Iqbal was restored to the position of 2 November 2007 on the bench of supreme court.

Controversies

Iqbal is one of the judges who took oath under PCO in 1999 as a Justice of High Court of Balochistan.

Important cases

On 13 April 2005, a bench headed by, then Chief Justice Nazim Hussain Siddiqui, with other members of bench being Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, Javed Iqbal, Abdul Hameed Dogar and Faqir Muhammad Khokhar, unanimously dismissed all petitions challenging the 17th Constitutional Amendment and the dual office of General Pervez Musharraf as the President as well as the Chief of Army Staff. However, a decision in a case relating to the retirement age of the superior court judges was withheld.
On 28 September 2007, Javed Iqbal along with Abdul Hameed Dogar, M. Javed Buttar, Mohammad Nawaz Abbasi, Faqir Muhammad Khokhar, and Falak Sher formed a majority opinion in holding that petition challenging General Pervez Musharraf candidature for the second term as the president as non-maintainable. Head of the bench Rana Bhagwandas, with two other members Sardar Muhammad Raza Khan and Mian Shakirullah Jan dissented.
On 3 November 2007, Iqbal was the member of seven-panel bench headed by Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry which unanimously declared the 2007 Pakistani state of emergency as illegal and passed an order restraining all judges of Supreme Court and High Courts from taking oath under Provisional Constitutional Order. The other members of the bench were Rana Bhagwandas, Mian Shakirullah Jan, Nasir-ul-Mulk, Raja Muhammad Fayyaz Ahmad, and Ghulam Rabbani.

Writings and literature