Reference: Rana Bhagwandas remembered

Friends, colleagues highlight late judge’s humility and love for humanity.

Activists, lawyers and students on Tuesday paid tributes to former acting chief justice Rana Bhagwandas at a reference here.

“Justice Bhagwandas will always be remembered for his unflinching courage and commitment to uphold the law; strike down injustice; and his love for the law, literature, languages and the land,” said a press release.

The reference “A tribute to an iconic intellectual judge” was organised by the Pakistan Intellectual Forum (PIF).

Justice (retd) Parvaiz Ali Chawla said, “The virtues which a judge should possess were inherent and intrinsic in Justice Rana Bhagwandas.”

Former Federal Judicial Academy DG Chaudhry Hasan Nawz said justice Bhagwandas had imbibed the principles of Muslim and Hindu laws, which enabled him to make pronouncements on those laws.  Hashim Abro of the PIF said, “Larkano has produced a number of intellectual judges and jurists. Justice Rana Bhagwandas was a thinker, a lover of literature, and a disciple of Bhittai.”

Abro recalled that whenever Bhagwandas attended some event, he made sure that his driver and the police guard had eaten before he ate.

“Pakistan today needs people like Rana Bhagwandas. We must follow in his footprints to respect humanity,” Abro said. The participants also supported a resolution demanding to name a road in Islamabad after the late judge. They also demanded the authorities establish a college of law and a public park in his name at his native town Naseerabad in Qambar Shahdad Kot district.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 25^th, 2015.