Waqar Ahmed Seth

Waqar Ahmed Seth (born 16 March 1961) is a Pakistani jurist who has been the Chief Justice of Peshawar High Court since 28 June 2018.[1] He presided the special court which heard the high treason case against Pervez Musharraf and one of the two judges on a three judge panel who convicted Musharraf for this crime and sentenced him to death.[2] This was the first time in Pakistan's history that a military dictator was convicted for high treason.[3]

Waqar Ahmed Seth
Chief Justice of Peshawar High Court
Assumed office
28 June 2018
Preceded byYahya Afridi
Justice of Peshawar High Court
Assumed office
2 August 2011
Personal details
Born (1961-03-16) 16 March 1961
Dera Ismail Khan District, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan
NationalityPakistani

Early life and education

Born in Dera Ismail Khan on March 16, 1961, he received his early education from Cantonment Public School, Peshawar.[4]

He got Higher Secondary School Certificate from the FG Inter College for Boys in 1977 and a Bachelor of Science degree from Islamia College, Peshawar in 1981.[5]

He did his LLB from Khyber Law College, Peshawar in 1985 and M.A. (Political Science) from the University of Peshawar in 1986.[5]

Judicial career

Seth started his professional career in December 1985 when he was enrolled as an advocate in the lower courts.

He was enrolled as an advocate of the high court on March 22, 1990. Subsequently, on May 24, 2008, he was enrolled as an advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan.

His judicial career started on August 2, 2011, when he was elevated to the Peshawar High Court as an additional judge. He has also remained a banking judge, company judge and a member of subordinate Judiciary Service Tribunal, Peshawar.

On 28 June 2018, he was appointed Chief Justice of Peshawar High Court.

He was inducted into the special court hearing high treason case against Pervez Musharraf in October 2019 as the president of the court.

On 17 December 2019, the three-member bench of this special court awarded death sentence to Musharraf in a short order. This short order was criticized by Director General of Inter-Services Public Relations of Pakistan military, General Asif Ghafoor. Ghafoor said in his statement that "there was pain and anguish among the rank and file of military" due to this punishment and that Musharraf cannot be a traitor since he served his country for 40 years and fought wars for its defense. Later, the short order was criticized by government ministers associated with Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, most prominently by Firdous Ashiq Awan and attorney general Anwar Mansoor Khan.[6]

The special court issued a 169-page long detailed order on 19 December 2019. He was widely criticized by government ministers and legislators associated with Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf for his opinionated note about giving an exemplary punishment to Musharraf. Seth wrote in paragraph 66 of the judgement that law enforcement agencies of Pakistan should arrest and hang Musharraf till death and if somehow he is able to evade this punishment and dies before the punishment then his body should be dragged and hanged for three days in D-Chowk of Islamabad in front of the Parliament building. The reasons he gave for this posthumous punishment was Musharraf's persistent and stubborn delaying tactics to avoid facing the court and ultimately the punishment. The judge also directed to bring all those to justice who was responsible to help Musharraf flee from the country.[7]

After the judgement, the Director General of Inter-Services Public Relations, General Asif Ghafoor issued veiled threats aimed at the judges who decided to punish Musharraf suggesting that they are enemy of the country and Pakistan Military knows how to defend its honour and dignity.[8][9][10] Taking the cue from the General, three ministers belonging to Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Government appeared in a press conference and announced that government have decided to file a reference against Seth in Supreme Judicial Council for his removal from judiciary. During the conference, Firdous Ashiq Awan, Farogh Naseem, and Shehzad Akbar hurled insults at the judge. Awan described him as working for the enemy, called his verdict as a plot against armed forces and the country, Naseem said that the judge is mentally unfit and lacks mental capacity, and Akbar said that "whosoever wrote the Para 66 cannot be friend of the nation".[8][11]

In November 2018, Seth as part of two member bench of Peshawar High Court reversed sentences of military courts against 74 convicts, 50 of which were death sentences. That decision by Seth was used by this same government as an example in International Court of Justice (ICJ) to stress that courts in Pakistan are independent to operate without any influence from government or military. This helped Pakistan's case against Indian spy Kalbhushan Yadav as ICJ noted the verdict by Seth as the reason for their verdict to not reversing Yadav's death sentence as Seth's verdict established that decisions by military courts can be reviewed in Pakistan's superior judiciary thus Yadav is also free to file a review petition.[12]

gollark: It's not rocket surgery.
gollark: Oh no, not MATHEMATIC ™!
gollark: Please verify this elsewhere because I don't really maths, but logarithms are basically just the inverse of exponents.
gollark: It might be the other way round sometimes. On fancier systems the base is written as a subscript.
gollark: Some calculators will support `log` with two parameters, one of which is the base, so just `log(number, base)`.

References
  1. "Profiles of Justice: Yahya Afridi and Justice Waqar Ahmed Seth". www.thenews.com.pk.
  2. "Special court sentences Pervez Musharraf to death in high treason case". dunyanews.tv.
  3. "Former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf sentenced to death for high treason". WQAD.com. December 17, 2019.
  4. "Profiles of Justice : Yahya Afridi and Justice Waqar Ahmed Seth". www.thenews.com.pk.
  5. Report, Bureau (June 29, 2018). "PHC gets new chief justice". DAWN.COM.
  6. "CJP Khosa: The judge who fast-tracked treason case". The Express Tribune. December 17, 2019.
  7. Bhatti, Haseeb (December 19, 2019). "Musharraf 'persistently, stubbornly' delayed, evaded high treason trial, says detailed verdict". DAWN.COM.
  8. "Army, Government Slam Musharraf Treason Verdict Author". Newsweek Pakistan. December 20, 2019.
  9. "Pakistan Army knows how to defend its honour and dignity: DG ISPR". The Express Tribune. December 19, 2019.
  10. "ISPR blasts detailed verdict in Musharraf treason case, deems it 'against humanity, religion'". DAWN.COM. December 19, 2019.
  11. "Musharraf case: Govt to move Supreme Judicial Council against judge Waqar Seth". The News International. December 19, 2019.
  12. "Kulbhushan Jadhav's case: Justice Seth's verdict benefited Pakistan in ICJ". The News International. December 21, 2019.
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