PESHAWAR: Justice (retd) Tariq Pervez has been nominated as caretaker Chief Minister of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) province, Dispatch News Desk (DND) reported on Friday.
Chief Minister KPK Ameer Haider Khan Hoti and Leader of the Opposition in provincial assembly, Akram Khan Durrani, announced it during a press conference at Khyber Pakhtunkhwa House Islamabad on Friday.
They said the former judge has been nominated in consensus with the opposition.
By nominating a caretaker chief minister, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has taken lead over the three other provinces as well as the centre. Under the Constitution, a caretaker chief minister has to be appointed by the governor in consultation with the chief minister and the leader of opposition.
A former chief justice of Peshawar High Court Justice Tariq Pervez was a judge of repute who earned a lot of respect from the legal fraternity and civil society when he declined to take oath under the Provisional Constitution Order after General Pervez Musharraf declared emergency on Nov 3, 2007.
He was chief justice of the high court at that time. Tariq Pervez Khan was finally restored along with several other judges of superior courts.
Justice Tariq Pervez was born in Peshawar on Feb 15, 1948, and did his graduation in law in 1971 from the University of Peshawar. He was considered a competent lawyer and well-versed in different fields of law, especially criminal jurisprudence.
Justice Tariq Pervez had served as president of PHC Bar Association in 1996. He was appointed as chief justice of PHC on April 5, 2005, and elevated to the Supreme Court in Oct 2009. He retired from that post on Feb 14 this year.
Sources said that some elements in the government had raised objections over the nomination of Justice Tariq Pervez because two years had not elapsed after his retirement from government service. However, they added, the objections was rejected as some legal experts were of the opinion that the two-year bar was not required for the post of caretaker chief minister as it was not included in the service of Pakistan under article 260 of the Constitution.
When a reference was filed against Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry in March 2007, Justice Tariq Pervez was the first chief justice of a high court to have attended a reference put forward by the Peshawar High Court Bar Association.
DND