20 verdicts in three months: Pakistan’s first blind judge hits a home run

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s first-ever visually-challenged civil judge, Yousaf Salim, has set a benchmark of a creditable performance by settling over a dozen cases of his three months in office, ARY News reported.

Salim was praised by his fellow judges for pronouncing verdicts in 20 cases in just three months.

Sharing his views on his own performance, he remarked: “Nothing is impossible in the world once you put in hard efforts.”

He recalled it took him hard-slogging efforts to reach his ‘destination’. Yousaf Salim had cleared his test; however, he wasn’t called for an interview due to his visual impairment. Then chief justice Saqib Nisar took notice and ordered for his interview to be conducted.

Mr Salim successfully got through the interview and was appointed civil judge in January 2019.

Read: Pakistan set to appoint its first blind judge

Salim who hails from Lahore is the son of a charted accountant. He has four sisters and two of them are also visually impaired.

Salim is a gold medallist of the Punjab University in LLB (Honors) and had topped the written judiciary exam among 6,500 candidates in 2014. But his impressive academic record only took him to the interview stage for the position of civil judge. He was among 21 successful candidates but was not selected as he was blind.

He had expressed gratitude to CJP for taking notice of the situation and the chief justice of LHC and selection committee for reconsidering his case and recommending him for the position.