Former judge Malik Qayum passes away

LAHORE: Former judge of the Lahore High Court (LHC) Malik Muhammad Qayum 78 passed away on Friday.

A large number of members of the legal and political fraternity attended his funeral prayer offered at Jamia Ashrafia after after Namaz-e-Jummah.

His brother late Pervez Malik was a senior politician and president of PML-N Lahore.

Justice Qayum’s son Barrister Ahmad Qayum is also a former secretary of the Lahore High Court Bar Association and a member of the Punjab Bar Council.

Justice Qayum son of Muhammad Akram who was also a judge of the LHC and the Supreme Court was born on December 18, 1944.

Justice Akram was a member of a five-judge bench of the LHC that handed down the death penalty to former Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.

Justice Qayum had started his career as a lawyer in 1964. He was elected secretary of Lahore Bar Association in 1970 and president in 1980. He was working as a deputy attorney general when the government elevated him as judge of the LHC in 1988.

Justice Qayum got fame after he held a judicial inquiry into the allegations of match fixing against top cricketers of the country during late 90s. He had slapped a life time ban on test cricketer Saleem Malik.

Justice Qayum had to tender his resignation in 2001 after the Supreme Court criticized him for delivering a judgment convicting former slain Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and her husband former president Asif Ali Zardari in a corruption case.

Later he resumed legal practice and was elected president of the Supreme Court Bar Association in 2005. Then president late Gen Pervez Musharraf had appointed Qayum as attorney general in 2007.

Qayum had previously defended Musharraf in most of the cases since the outbreak of the judicial crisis following the imposition of emergency in November 2007.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023