Muhammad Munir

Muhammad Munir
Chief Justice of Pakistan
In office 29 June 1954 – 2 May 1960
Appointed by	Malik Ghulam Muhammad
Preceded by	Abdul Rashid
Succeeded by	Muhammad Shahabuddin
Personal details
Born	1895
Died	1979 (aged 83–84)
Alma mater	Government College University, Lahore

Muhammad Munir (1895–1979) was the second Chief Justice of Pakistan serving from 1954 to 1960.

Munir obtained his degree of master's in English Literature from Government College Lahore, he joined Law College to earn his L.L.B. He started his career as a lawyer in Amritsar in 1921. He moved to Lahore in 1922.

Munir was appointed assistant advocate-general of Punjab in 1937, and first president of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal of India in 1940. He was elevated to the Bench of Judicature at Lahore in 1942. He and Justice Din Muhammad represented the All India Muslim League on the Punjab Boundary Commission in 1947. The following year he was made the chairman of the Pakistan Pay Commission. In 1949, he was made the chief justice of the Lahore High Court.

In 1954, Munir was made the chief justice of the Federal Court, chief justice of Pakistan. Besides being the chief justice, he also remained the chairman of the Delimitation Commission from June 1956 to July 1958. He retired on May 2, 1960.

Munir invoked the doctrine of necessity, validating the dissolution of the first Constituent Assembly of Pakistan. The assembly was dissolved on October 24, 1954, by Governor General Ghulam Muhammad, an alumnus of Aligarh Muslim University. He has been widely criticized for validating the dissolution, although some of the Pakistani politicians had called for its dissolution.

Justice Munir also wrote a book From Jinnah to Zia, arguing that Jinnah stood for a secular state.

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