Paying Of Homage, Respect And Tribute To Late Mr. Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth, Chief Justice, Peshawar High Court

PAYING OF HOMAGE, RESPECT AND TRIBUTE TO PAYING OF HOMAGE, RESPECT AND TRIBUTE TO LATE MR. JUSTICE WAQAR AHMAD SETH, CHIEF JUSTICE, PESHAWAR HIGH COURT Speech by Mr. Justice Qaiser Rashid Khan, Acting Chief Justice, Peshawar High Court My Honourable Judges, bereaved family members, learned Advocate General, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and members of his team, learned Additional Attorney General and members of his team, President and Vice President Supreme Court Bar Association, Presidents and General Secretaries of High Court Bar Associations including Circuit Benches, Senior Lawyers throughout Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Chief Secretary, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Capital City Police Officer, Peshawar, Secretary Law Department, Former Hon'ble Judges, Principal Officers of this court, District and Sessions Judges, Judges in Ex-Cadre, Senior Lawyers throughout Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Vice Chairman, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Bar Council and Members Executive, Presidents and General Secretaries of the District Bar Associations throughout Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen. We have assembled here to pay homage respect and tribute to our dearest and distinguished brother Judge on the Bench, late Chief Justice Mr. Waqar Ahmad Seth, who left us in a state of deep shock for his eternal abode on 12th November, 2020. As Quran says: "Every soul shall taste death" It is an inescapable part of our faith. However, in the person of Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth, we have indeed not just lost a judge of the highest caliber but a man of exceptional courage and qualities of head and heart. My friendship with him lasted for over 37 long years. Out of affection I would call him "Seth Jee". Courtesy a common friend, I and Seth Jee got friends the day he entered the portals of Khyber Law College Peshawar on a beautiful morning in March 1983 while I was already there, a year senior to him. Our friendship continued for around four decades till he left all his friends in a state of deep mourning. After graduating from the Law College we joined the legal profession and then both of us decided to appear in the MA Political Science exam and successfully qualified the same. Our march in the profession continued together. We got our High Court licenses the same day and so were our Supreme Court licenses which we again got the same day. Luckily, we were destined to be elevated to the Bench again on the same day on 2nd August, 2011. While hundreds of others have been mourning the death of a great humanist and a man of sterling qualities. I am mourning the loss of my brother My friend Seth Jee started his professional career by defending the laborers working in factories and other industrial and commercial establishments. His chamber always used to be flooded with such clients who could hardly manage to pay the professional fees to the lawyers. However, in the person of Seth Jee, they had found a messiah who would conduct the cases on their behalf without fee in most of the cases. He stood very tall among his fellow lawyers as he never demanded fee from such workers though he was the best available choice in the province. Another unique feature of his professional career and of course his character was that he never accepted a case against the workers on behalf of any industrial and commercial concern before the labour court or for that matter before any other higher forum. Let me share it with you that it was because of his exceptional abilities and competence that he was offered heavy fees by various industries to conduct cases on their behalf but the cause of defending the labourers was so close to his heart that he declined all such monetary offers. Similarly, he had specialized in services laws before his elevation to the Bench. I had the privilege of seeking his advice in many cases that I personally conducted. His habit of not charging the poor and needy continued all along and thus, he would not charge a person seeking a job as a school teacher or persons performing small jobs at any government run institutions before the service tribunal and even before the High Court as the case may be. It was because he was not fond of money. During his funeral, one of the biggest in the history of Peshawar, hundreds of poor and needy clients were seen sobbing and reciting Surah Fateha. Another facet of his life was that he would always happily lend a helping hand to the needy, poor and orphans, all hidden from the public eye. He would spare a good amount of money from his salary for such purposes. December 21, 1995 was a dark day in his life. On that day he lost the eye sight of his right eye in an incident when a bomb exploded at Peshawar Saddar while he was driving his vehicle on the main Saddar Road Peshawar. The broken glass piece of his vehicle hit his eye and damaged it beyond cure despite surgeries. Despite being a young man, about 34 years of age, he lived thereafter for around 25 long years. However, his disability did not deter him in any manner and he remained as one of the busiest and successful lawyer of the province till his elevation to the bench. He was very witty and had a great sense of humour. He was very social and never missed any funeral ceremony or a Walima in the family and friends. He enjoyed the company of his friends whom he has since left in a state of mourning with tearful eyes. He was by nature judicious and an epitome of simplicity, humanism and integrity. His unqualified and unwavering commitment to the constitution , unflinching reverence to the rule of law, human rights and human liberties earned him singular respect not only in the legal community but in the masses at large. His judgments are there to carve out a distinguishable niche for him in the annals of judicial history. I am sure that he is destined to long out live the contours of his mortal life. He heard and decided some of the most difficult cases of our judicial history and his verdicts abound in the richness of constitutional understanding, legal interpretation and exposition. He had a deep concern for human rights and liberties. He has already gone down in the judicial history as a fearless person to whom his principles were dearer than his life. He was a man of lofty ideals, a true iconoclast who broke many myths through his judgments. Even when he was hospitalized at Islamabad because of his Corona ailment and had put a double oxygen mask and when his oxygen saturation had dropped down to dangerous levels on many occasions, still on my visit to him, he was in a cheerful mood with a thumbs up sign in the face of imminent death. The friends and relatives who were around him could see a smile on his face. About such persons Allama lqbal has rightly said: He was a man of unparalleled courage who remained undeterred in the face of all sorts of odds and obstacles. Throughout his life, he remained as a highly principled man who would not succumb to any pressure. May his soul rest in eternal peace and may Allah Almighty in his infinite mercy give courage and fortitude to his bereaved family members and all his friends to bear this irreparable loss. Ameen! In his fond memory, I would end my speech with two couplets of the revolutionary poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz.