Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: After a long time, the Supreme Court (SC) attained its sanctioned strength of 17 judges on Thursday when Justice Yahya Afridi, chief justice of Peshawar High Court, took oath as judge of the apex court.

Justice Yahya Afridi was administered the oath of office by Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar. The oath taking ceremony held at the Supreme Court was attended by top court judges, attorney general for Pakistan, advocate general, senior lawyers, law officers, officers of Law and Justice Commission of Pakistan and the Federal Judicial Academy. Proceedings of the ceremony were conducted by Supreme Court Registrar Arbab Arif.

The sanctioned strength of the Supreme Court judges is 17, including the chief justice, which has been incomplete for last many years for failure to timely induct judges against the posts falling vacant due to retirement of judges.

The newly inducted apex court judge – Justice Yahya Afridi – was born on January 23, 1965, at DI Khan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Justice Afridi, after doing A Levels from Aitchison College Lahore in 1982, did his BA from Government College Lahore in 1985 and LLB from Punjab University Law College in 1988. He did MA (Economics) from Punjab University Lahore in 1989 and LLM from Jesus College, Cambridge University, UK, in 1990.

He was enrolled as an advocate of the Supreme Court in 2004. He was appointed as additional judge on March 15, 2010, and confirmed as permanent judge of the Peshawar High Court on March 15, 2012. He took oath as chief justice of the Peshawar High Court on December 30, 2016.

Published in Daily Times, June 29^th 2018.