(Asghar Ali Mubarak)
Supreme Court Justice Yahya Afridi has been nominated as the Chief Justice of Pakistan by a special parliamentary committee with a two-thirds majority. After the implementation of the 26th constitutional amendment, a special parliamentary committee meeting was held for the appointment of the new Chief Justice of Pakistan. The closed-door meeting of the 12-member Special Parliamentary Committee was held in Committee Room 5 of the Parliament House. 3 members of Sunni Ittehad Council Ali Zafar, Barrister Gohar and Hamid Raza boycotted the meeting. Raja Pervez Sharaf, Farooq H Naik, Syed Naveed Qamar, Kamran Murtaza, Rana Ansar, Ahsan Iqbal, Shaishta Parvez Malik, Azam Nazir Tarar and Khawaja Asif participated in the meeting. The names of 3 judges sent by the Law Secretary for the appointment of the Chief Justice were presented in the committee. The Law Secretary had sent a panel of names of 3 senior most judges to the committee. The three most senior judges of the Supreme Court include Justice Mansoor Ali Shah, Justice Muneeb Akhtar and Justice Yahya Afridi. After a long discussion, the committee agreed on the name of Justice Yahya Afridi by a two-thirds majority. Speaking to the media after the meeting, committee member and federal law minister Nazir Tarar said that the committee has sent Justice Yahya Afridi to the Prime Minister. The committee has nominated Justice Yahya Afridi as the Chief Justice of Pakistan by a two-thirds majority. Earlier during the meeting JUI Senator Kamran Murtaza contacted the leaders of Sunni Ittehad Council by telephone and invited them to attend the meeting but the members of Sunni Ittehad Council refused to attend the meeting. The Parliamentary Committee formed a 4-member committee to appoint the opposition, which included Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, Kamran Murtaza, Rana Ansar and Ahsan Iqbal. Supreme Court Judge Justice Yahya Afridi was born on 23 January 1965 in Dera Ismail Khan, and received his primary education from Aitchison College, Lahore. Graduated from Govt College Lahore and MA in Economics from Punjab University Lahore. He also obtained an LLM from Jesus College Cambridge University on a Commonwealth Scholarship. Justice Yahya Afridi started practice as a High Court Advocate in 1990 and started practicing as Supreme Court Advocate in 2004. Justice Yahya Afridi also served as Assistant Advocate General for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Appointed Additional Judge of Peshawar High Court in 2010, he was appointed as Permanent Judge on 15 March 2012. On December 30, 2016, Justice Yahya Afridi took oath as the Chief Justice of Peshawar High Court. Appointed as a judge of the Supreme Court of Pakistan on 28 June 2018. Justice Yahya Afridi heard various cases in the Supreme Court, was a part of the larger bench in the case related to the specific seats of the Sunni Unity Council and also wrote his dissenting note in the judgment related to the case. Justice Yahya Afridi was also part of the 9-member larger bench of the Supreme Court on the presidential reference against the execution of former Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. Justice Yahya Afridi had declined to join the three-member judges committee of the Supreme Court Practice and Procedure Ordinance 2024.