Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa took oath as the 26th Chief Justice of Pakistan at a ceremony here on Friday.
Chief Justice Khosa is scheduled to retire on December 21, 2019, Dawn news reports.
President Arif Alvi administered the oath to Justice Khosa before an audience of top government and military officials, Supreme Court judges, senior lawyers and dignitaries at the Aiwan-i-Sadr (Presidential Palace).
Justice Khosa has, over the course of his nearly two decade long career, decided about 55,000 cases. A special bench headed by him has decided over 10,000 cases of a criminal nature since 2014.
At outgoing Chief Justice Saqib Nisar’s full court reference on Thursday, Justice Khosa introduced the agenda for his tenure: “To attend to the causes that contribute towards delay in disposition of cases at all levels of the judicial hierarchy.”
Justice Khosa had observed that there are 1.9 million cases pending before all courts across the country compared to just 3,000 judges and magistrates.