LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) is having a moment of pride with the appointment of a woman judge after a decade.
Justice Abhar Gul Khan’s appointment as an additional judge makes her (currently) the second woman to be part of LHC’s judicial fraternity.
Justice Aalia Neelum is currently the chief justice of the LHC.
Abhar Gul Khan was born in Lahore in 1972. After initial studies, she did her LLB from the Punjab University in 1995 and LLM in 1998.
Having topped the written examination and proving her mettle, she was appointed civil judge in 1999. She had the distinction of having cleared a backlog of record number of cases as civil judge and the then chief justice, Falaksher, presented her cash award.
Subsequently, she rose to the ranks of senior civil judge, additional sessions judge and sessions judge.
Later, she was made judge of anti-terrorism court of Lahore and handed down punishments to the perpetrators of Kasur children’s sexual assault. She passed verdicts in several other notable cases while presiding as ATC judge.
She is the first civil judge to have been elevated as a high court judge.
Justice Aalia Neelum was the first woman to have been elevated as the LHC chief justice.
Justice Fakhrunnisa Khokhar, Justice Nasira Javed Iqbal and Justice Talat Yaqoob also served as LHC judges in the past. Justices Nasira Iqbal and Talat Yaqoob were removed after the Al-Jihad Trust Case in 1996.
In May 2001, Justice Nasira was made additional judge of LHC but she relinquished the charge.
Justice Ayesha Malik took oath as additional judge of LHC in 2012, Justice Aalia Neelum in 2013 and Justice Iram Sajjad Gul in June 2015. Iram Sajjad could not rise to the rank of permanent judge.
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