Maulvi Tamizuddin Khan | |
|---|---|
 | |
| 2nd & 4thSpeaker of the National Assembly | |
| In office 11 June 1962 – 19 August 1963 | |
| Deputy | Mohammad Afzal Cheema |
| Preceded by | Abdul Wahab Khan |
| Succeeded by | Fazlul Qadir Chaudhry |
| In office 14 December 1948 – 24 October 1954 | |
| Deputy | M.H. Gazder |
| Preceded by | Mohammad Ali Jinnah |
| Succeeded by | Abdul Wahab Khan |
| 1stDeputy Speaker of the National Assembly of Pakistan | |
| In office 23 February 1948 – 13 December 1948 | |
| Preceded by | Office established |
| Succeeded by | Muhammad Hashim Gazdar |
| Member of theCentral Legislative Assembly | |
| In office 1945–1947 | |
| Preceded by | Abdul Halim Ghaznavi |
| Constituency | Dacca cumMymensingh |
| Personal details | |
| Born | March 1889 Rajbari,Bengal,British India |
| Died | 19 August 1963(1963-08-19) (aged 74) Dacca,East Pakistan, Pakistan |
| Political party | Muslim League(1915–1963) Indian National Congress(1921–1926) |
| Children | Razia Khan (daughter) |
| Relatives | Aasha Mehreen Amin (granddaughter) |
| Alma mater | Presidency College, Kolkata Surendranath College University of Calcutta |
Maulvi Tamizuddin Khan (M. T. Khan; March 1889 – 19 August 1963)[1][2] was the Speaker of Pakistan'sConstituent Assembly from 1948 to 1954 andNational Assembly of Pakistan between 1962 and 1963.[3]
Khan was born in March 1889 to theBengali MuslimKhan family ofKhankhanapur inRajbari, then part of theFaridpur district of theBengal Presidency.[4] His father was afarmer with only threeacres of land.[5] After completing his education at the Khankhanapur High School, he got enrolled at theUniversity of Calcutta. He completed his master's in English from thePresidency College, Calcutta in 1913 and LLB in 1915 from Rippon College and started his legal profession inFaridpur.[2] making him the firstMuslim fromFaridpur district to complete master's degree.[5]
Khan joinednon-cooperation movement led byGandhi when he was a student.[6] Later he joined theIndian National Congress and subsequently joinedkhilafat movement in 1921 and was arrested and sent to Faridpur jail and later was shifted to Central jail in Dhaka. At that time, he was an ardent follower ofChittaranjan Das.[7]
Khan was elected vice-chairman of Faridpur Municipality. In 1926, he got elected to the Bengal Legislative Assembly from Faridpur.[2] Khan left Congress in 1926 as he thought that the party was biased towards theHindus He later became the secretary of the Anjuman-i-Islamia and subsequently joined the Muslim League.[2][6]
He competed on a Muslim League ticket in the 1937 election and defeated the Congressional candidate convincingly. Between 1937 and 1947, Khan served twice as Minister of Health, Agriculture, Industry and Education in Bengal.[6][8]
Khan created history when the Constituent Assembly was dismissed by Governor GeneralGhulam Mohammad in 1954. Khan challenged the dismissal in the court and the case was filed in the morning of 7 November 1954, by Advocate Manzar-e-Alam.[5] Although the High Court agreed and overturned it, the Federal Court underJusticeMuhammad Munir upheld the dismissal. He had been president of theBasic Principles Committee set up in 1949.
"JusticeA. R. Cornelius was the sole dissenting judge in the landmark judgment handed down by the Supreme Court in the Maulvi Tamizuddin case. That judgment altered the course of politics in Pakistan forever and sealed the fate of democracy. The law had guided him as he had interpreted it and his conscience.".[9]
The decision to uphold the dismissal of the constituent assembly was to mark the beginning of the overt role of Pakistan's military and civil establishment in Pakistani politics.[10]
Khan's daughters wereRazia Khan and Qulsum Huda Khan.[11][12] Razia was anEkushey Padak winning writer and poet,[13] and married to Anwarul Amin Makhon, the youngest son of formerPrime Minister of PakistanNurul Amin.[14] They have a son named Kaiser Tamiz Amin and a daughter namedAasha Mehreen Amin.[15][16] On the other hand, Qulsum was one of the founders and vice-chancellors ofCentral Women's University.[17]
