Bilal Nazki

Who is Bilal Nazki?

Justice Bilal Nazki is the Chairman of the Human Rights Commission of Bihar. He also heads the high powered committee set up by Government of India to review the functioning of the Haj Committee of India and its state units. He is a retired Chief Justice of Orissa High Court and has held various other senior legal roles during his career.

Bilal Nazki was born on 18 November 1947 at Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, and was educated at the Aligarh Muslim University. He was one of eight children and his father, Ghulam Rasool Nazki — a broadcaster, poet and literary figure who won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1987 — had moved from Bandipora to Srinagar in the year of Bilal's birth.

After graduation he joined the Bar in Srinagar and practised in various courts, while also spending some time as a lecturer of the Kashmir University. He worked as an advisor to the state government on various matters and was a member of the Delimitation Commission, which was concerned with electoral matters. Nazki was appointed Deputy Advocate-General of Jammu and Kashmir in 1986 and promoted to Advocate-General in January 1992. In 1991, while serving as an advocate and during a period of considerable instability in the state, he was kidnapped by an unidentified militant group but managed to escape his captors, who shot him five times as he did so. He ran 5 kilometres or 6 kilometres to a hospital.