Prime Minister Imran Khan, Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa, Chief of the Air Staff Aasim Zaheer, Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Zafar Mahmood Abbasi, Chairman Senate Sadiq Sanjrani, Speaker National Assembly Asad Qaiser, Sindh Governor Imran Ismail, and members of the federal cabinet participated in the ceremony.
A number of foreign dignitaries also attended the ceremony including Chief Justice of India Justice Ranjan Gogoi, President Supreme Court of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus Narin Ferdi Sefik, Chief Judge State of Borno Nigeria Kashim Zannah, former senior puisne judge Supreme Court of India and President Governing Committee of the Commonwealth Judicial Education Institute Justice Madan Bhimarao Lokur, Savita Lokur (spouse), and Sandra E Oxner, former judge and founding president Commonwealth Judicial Education Institute, Canada.
"I will do right to all manner of people, according to law, without fear or favour," said Justice Khosa after the oath-taking. Chief Justice Khosa, 64-year old, replaced Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar (retd), whose tenure came to an end with his retirement on Thursday last (January 17). At the full court reference given in the honour of outgoing chief justice Mian Saqib Nisar on Thursday last, Justice Khosa introduced the agenda for his tenure: "To attend to the causes that contribute towards delay in disposition of cases at all levels of the judicial hierarchy."
The newly-appointed Chief Justice afterwards reached the Supreme Court to assume charge of his office. Upon arrival, he was presented a guard of honour by a contingent of police. Chief justice Asif Saeed Khosa will serve as top judge of the Supreme Court for approximately 337 days and is scheduled to retire on December 21, 2019.
Justice Khosa was among the bench of the judges which disqualified former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from politics for life after corruption allegations were levelled against him in 2017 in the Panama Papers and former Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani in 2012 for five years on contempt of court charges. Justice Khosa was also part of two other high-profile cases. He headed the bench which upheld the conviction of Mumtaz Qadri in 2015 for the murder of Governor Punjab Salmaan Taseer. Last year in October, he was part of a bench that acquitted Aasia Bibi, a Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy charges.
Justice Khosa is known for adding lyrical flair to his observations and judgements - most recently in the landmark Panama Papers verdict that de-seated Nawaz Sharif as the Prime Minister in 2017. Justice Saeed Khosa, over a period of more than 19 years, has decided about 55,000 cases including several high-profile ones. A special bench headed by him has decided over 10,000 cases of criminal nature since 2014.
Saeed Khosa was born on December 21, 1954 in Dera Ghazi Khan. He matriculated from Multan in 1969 and completed his intermediate from Government College Lahore in 1971, graduation and master degrees from the University of Punjab and his LLM degree from Queens College Cambridge in 1978. Barrister Khosa was appointed as Lahore High Court Judge in May 1998. On February 18, 2010, Justice Khosa was elevated to the position of a Supreme Court judge.
Justice Khosa has taught at a number of universities, including University Law College, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan; Punjab University Law College, Lahore; Pakistan College of Law, Lahore; Civil Services Academy, Lahore; National Institute of Public Administration (NIPA), Lahore.
On November 3, 2007, Justice Khosa refused to abide by former President General Musharraf's presidential order declaring a state of emergency after suspending the Constitution and demanded judges of the superior judiciary to retake oath under the Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO). On August 18, 2008, Justice Khosa was restored to his position as a High Court judge.
Justice Khosa has been in-charge of the Federal Judicial Academy, Islamabad, since 2015, and has been also a member of the Judicial Commission of Pakistan and the Supreme Judicial Council of Pakistan since 2015. Justice Khosa also called for open and free discussion on various issues and points of contention in order to "resolve such issues through a mutually agreed course of action." Justice Khosa's brothers are former bureaucrat Nasir Mahmood Khosa and former Inspector General of Police of Balochistan Tariq Masood Khosa.
