President Alvi names Justice Umar Ata Bandial as next chief justice of Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani President Dr. Arif Alvi on Thursday nominated Justice Umar Ata Bandial as the new chief justice of the country, Pakistani state media reported. 
Justice Bandial will succeed the incumbent Chief Justice Gulzar Ahmed on February 2, 2022, the state-run Radio Pakistan reported. 
Born on September 17, 1958 in Lahore, Justice Bandial received his elementary and secondary education in Lahore, Kohat, Rawalpindi and Peshawar. 
“He secured his B.A. (Economics) degree from Columbia University, USA followed by a Law Tripos degree from Cambridge University, UK and qualified as Barrister-at-Law from Lincoln’s Inn, London,” the Supreme Court of Pakistan’s website read. 
In 1983, Justice Bandial enrolled as an advocate of the Lahore High Court (LHC) and later, as an advocate of the Supreme Court. 
As a lawyer at the LHC, he dealt mostly with commercial, banking, tax and property matters. He also handled international commercial disputes and appeared in arbitration matters before the Supreme Court of Pakistan and international arbitral tribunals in London and Paris. 
He was elevated as a judge of the Lahore High Court on December 4, 2004. Justice Bandial is one of the judges who refused to take oath under the Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO), issued by former Pakistani military ruler Pervez Musharraf, in November 2007. 
He was reinstated as a judge of the Lahore High Court after the country’s lawyers succeeded in their movement for the restoration of the judiciary and constitution against the Musharraf regime. 
Justice Bandial served as the chief justice of the Lahore High Court for two years until his elevation as a judge of the Supreme Court in June 2014. 
During his stint as a judge of the high court and the apex court, Justice Bandial has issued judgments on a number of civil and commercial disputes, and in constitutional rights and public interest cases.