Sheikh Anwarul Haq (Punjabi and ‎; 11 May 1917 – 3 March 1995), was a Pakistani jurist and an academic who served as the 9th Chief Justice of Pakistan from 23 September 1977 until resigning on 25 March 1981. He signed the death warrant for former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in a controversial murder case. Bhutto was executed on 4 April 1979. He also heard the case of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan and constituted a 7-member (7 supreme court judges) bench to decide on the appeal of the capital sentence by the Lahore High Court for authorizing the death sentence of the ex-Prime Minister of Pakistan.
After the death sentence of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who was convicted of murdering through proxy the father of one of his political opponents, Anwarul Haq took up the case against General Zia-ul-Haq's breaking his promise of holding elections. General Zia-ul-Haq introduced the PCO to legitimise his rule to by-pass the issues presented with this case and asked all the judges to sign an agreement accepting the PCO. Haq refused to take an oath under the imposed PCO, resigning on conscientious grounds. Anwarul Haq mobilised other like minded judges in the Supreme Court and High Courts to reject the proposed PCO by not signing the PCO. He was removed as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan due to his refusal to sign the PCO.
Biography
Early life and public service
Sheikh Anwarul Haq was born in Jullunder, Punjab, British India on 11 May 1917, to a Punjabi family. He earned early education from Jullunder and Wazirabad, passing his matriculation from Jullunder in 1932. He ranked first in MA in Economics examination at the Punjab University, setting a new record in that subject. He also did his LLB from there. In 1944, he was appointed as Sub Divisional Magistrate at the Dalhousie, India and heard various cases involving the civil lawsuits. During the same time, he was sent to Gurdaspur and was appointed as Deputy Commissioner and later elevated as Session Judge as well as Assistant Commissioner in 1946. For a short brief of time, he served as the deputy commissioner of Hissar (in East Punjab) in 1946, before joining the Cabinet Mission to be served as its Secretary to the Partition Steering Committee for the Punjab in 1947. During this time, he worked towards managing the Indian emigrants settling in Pakistan. From 1948 to 1952, he served in the bureaucracy as deputy commissioner of Montgomery and Sialkot. In 1956, he earned the degree and secured his graduation from the Imperial Defence College and subsequently returned to Pakistan.
In 1969, he was selected to lead a Legal Expert Delegation to Somalia to provide expertise in overviewing the constitutional crises in Somalia. He witnessed the war between India and Pakistan which resulted in the liberation of Bangladesh.
On 26 December 1971, he was named as a member of the War Enquiry Commission (WEC) along with Chief Justice Hamoodur Rahman, and the chief justices of the Sindh, Balochistan, and Punjab High Court, formed by the Chief Justice Rahman on the request of then-President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. On 1 January 1972, he was re-elevated as the senior justice at the Supreme Court.
<!--In the table below, the first mention of a location includes the country and both are wikilinked. Subsequent mentions of the city do not include the country, with the exception of Punjab, because of its presence in both India and Pakistan.-->
{| class="wikitable" style="width:100%;"
! span=col style="width:7%;" | Temporal Order
! span=col style="width:57%;" | Name of Post
! span=col style="width:18%;" | From
! span=col style="width:18%;" | To
|-
|1||Secretary to the Punjab and North-West Frontier Province Public Service Commission. Secretary to Government of Punjab, Pakistan, Medical & Local Government Department||22 February 1944||29 February 1944
|-
|2||Under-Secretary to Government of Punjab, Pakistan Revenue Department, Lahore||1 March 1944||1 May 1944
|-
|3||Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Dalhousie, India||2 May 1944||
|-
|4||Special Sub-Judge at Lahore for Judicial training||9 November 1944||
|-
|5||Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Dalhousie||28 May 1945||
|-
|6||Deputy Commissioner, Gurdaspur, India||June 1945||July 1945
|-
|7||District and Sessions Judge, Gurdaspur||3 November 1945||
|-
|8||Assistant Commissioner, Gurdaspur||23 February 1946||
|-
|9||Deputy Commissioner, Hisar, India||27 March 1946||
|-
|10||Secretary to the Partition Steering Committee for Punjab, Pakistan||9 July 1947||
|-
|11||Deputy Commissioner, Rawalpindi, Pakistan||8 August 1947||
|-
|12||Deputy Commissioner, Montgomery (now Sahiwal), Pakistan||October 1948||
|-
|13||Deputy Commissioner, Sialkot||April 1950||
|-
|14||Deputy Secretary, Ministry of Defence, Government of Pakistan, Rawalpindi||January 1952||December 1954
|-
|15||Training at Imperial Defence College (IDC), London||January 1955||December 1955
|-
|16||Deputy Secretary, Ministry of Defence, Government of Pakistan, Karachi||August 1956||
|-
|17||Joint Secretary, Ministry of Defence, Government of Pakistan, Karachi||August 1956||
|-
|18||District and Sessions Judge, Karachi||February 1957||
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|19||District and Sessions Judge, Lahore||June 1958||
|-
|20||Additional Judge, High Court of West Pakistan, Lahore||24 October 1959||
|-
|21||Permanent Judge, High Court of West Pakistan, Lahore||24 October 1962||
|-
|22||Member of the Law Reforms Commission||May 1967||
|-
|23||Acting leader of the legal expert delegation to the Republic of Somalia||July 1969||
|-
|24||Chief Justice Lahore High Court, Lahore, on dismemberment of One Unit||1 July 1970||
|-
|25||Judge, Supreme Court of Pakistan||16 October 1972||
|-
|26||Chief Justice of Pakistan||23 September 1977||25 March 1981