Justice Sheikh Anwar-ul-Haq was born on 11th May 1917 at Jullundur (now Jalandhar) in British India, to a Punjabi family. He passed his Matriculation Examination from the Government High School, Jalandhar in 1932. He ranked first in his school and secured a scholarship. He graduated from D.A.V. College, Jullundur in 1936 with Economics and Political Science as his majors. He was awarded two scholarships and chose to attend Government Islamia College, Lahore, where he earned a Master’s degree in Economics. He ranked first in the 1938 M.A. (Economics) Examination at Punjab University, setting a new record in that subject.
Justice Anwarul Haq
Born on 11 May 1917
Died on 3 Mar 1995
Chief Justice of Pakistan (1977–1981)
During his time at the Punjab University, he participated in a large number of declamation contests and prize debates and was often judged as the best speaker. From 1936-38, he was an activist of the All-India Muslim League and was a student advocate of the assertion of the separate identity of Indian Muslims. He attended the All-India Muslim League meeting in Calcutta in December 1937 as a student delegate.
In 1939, he was selected and joined the Indian Civil Service, instead of remaining with the Executive Branch, however, he chose to join the Judicial Branch of the ICS and went to the United Kingdom to be educated in Oxford. Upon returning in 1940, he was appointed Assistant Commissioner at Ferozpur and later appointed as Under-Secretary of Punjab and the North-West Frontier from 1942 until 1944. In 1944, he was appointed as Sub Divisional Magistrate at the Dalhousie, India and heard various cases involving the Civil Lawsuits. During the same time, he was sent to Gurdaspur and was appointed as Deputy Commissioner and later elevated to Session Judge as well as Assistant Commissioner in 1946. For a short brief time, he served as the Deputy Commissioner of Hissar (in East Punjab) in 1946, before joining the Cabinet Mission to serve as its Secretary to the Partition Steering Committee for the Punjab in 1947.
After the establishment of Pakistan as a result of the partition of British India by the British Empire, he opted for Pakistan and was appointed as deputy commissioner of Rawalpindi, Punjab, Pakistan. During this time, he worked towards managing the Indian emigrants settling in Pakistan. From 1948-52, he served in the bureaucracy as Deputy Commissioner of Montgomery and Sialkot.
In 1952, he joined the Ministry of Defence as its Deputy Secretary until 1954 when he left for the United Kingdom to attend the Imperial Defence College in London. In 1956, he earned the degree and secured his graduation from the Imperial Defence College and subsequently returned to Pakistan. He was appointed as Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Defence but later moved to the Ministry of Law & Justice to pursue his career as a Federal Judge.
In 1957, he was elevated as District-Session Judge in Sindh High Court but later moved to Lahore High Court in Punjab in 1958.
In 1959, he was appointed as a Judge in the West Pakistan High Court and moved on to the Supreme Court as a Senior Justice in 1962. In 1965, he was appointed as the Deputy Leader of the Pakistan Delegation to the Third Commonwealth and Empire Law Conference held in Sydney, Australia 1965. In 1967, he was appointed as a Member of the Law Reform Commission led by Chief Justice Alvin Robert Cornelius who conducted various case studies on land reforms in Pakistan.
In 1965, he attended the 3rd Commonwealth & Empire Law Conference in Sydney, Australia in August–September 1965 as leader of the Pakistan delegation.
In 1969, he was selected to lead a Legal Expert Delegation to Somalia to provide expertise in overviewing the constitutional crises in Somalia. In 1970, he was elevated as Chief Justice of the Lahore High Court by President Yahya Khan who issued the decree, the LFO No. 1970 that dissolved the status of West Pakistan.
He witnessed the war between India and Pakistan that resulted in the separation of East Pakistan as Bangladesh. On 26th December 1971, he was named as a Member of the War Enquiry Commission (WEC) along with Chief Justice Hamoodur Rahman, and the chief justices of the Sindh, Balochistan, and Punjab High Court, formed by the Chief Justice Rahman on the request of then-President Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. On 1st January 1972, he was re-elevated as the Senior Justice at the Supreme Court.
He was also appointed as Chairman of the National Pay Commission and Armed Forces Pay Commission in January 1976. He represented the Pakistan Supreme Court at the Centenary celebrations of the Supreme Court of Ghana at Accra in October 1976. He was appointed Chairman of the Commission on the Indus River System in September 1977.
He was appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in 1977. During his tenure as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, he delivered several controversial decisions, including the decision to uphold the death sentence imposed on Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto by the Lahore High Court. In confirming the death sentence, the seven-member Judges bench split four to three with Chief Justice Anwar-ul-Haq siding with the majority.
He also presided over the Supreme Court bench that awarded legitimacy to Zia ul-Haq’s coup, against the Government of Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. In Nusrat Bhutto vs. Government of Pakistan, the Supreme Court once again invoked the “doctrine of necessity” to keep in place an established political order, no matter how that order came into being.
He was appointed Chairman of the Civil Services Commission in February 1978.
On 25 March 1981, he resigned from the Supreme Court rather than take the oath of office under the Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO) promulgated by the Administration of Zia ul-Haq.
He was interested in academic and educational activities and had been a member of the Syndicates of Punjab University, University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad in Lyallpur (now called Faisalabad) and Allama Iqbal Open University, Islamabad
He also remained President of the Himayat-i-Islam Law College, Lahore for several years. He was acting Vice-Chancellor of Punjab University on multiple occasions. He had been President of the British Universities Alumni Association, Lahore since 1962. He was a guest speaker at a large number of social, intellectual, and cultural functions in Lahore, Rawalpindi, and Karachi.
He passed away on 3rd March 1995 in Lahore. Later his burial took place at Mian Mir Graveyard in Lahore Cantt.
