He attended various boarding schools before attending Bombay University in 1942.[citation needed] In 1944, Patel graduated with an LL.B. in Law and Justice from Bombay University. In 1945, Patel moved to Karachi where he began his legal practice in the Sindh High Court. In 1946, Patel went to the United Kingdom and attended the London School of Economics.[citation needed] In 1948, Patel received an MSc in Economics, followed by an LLM in Law and Justice Development in 1949. He wrote his master's thesis on the Pakistan economy and the legal system in Pakistan. In 1950, he was called to the bar from Lincoln's Inn where he was awarded BPTC in 1953. Following the completion of his doctorate, Patel returned to Karachi, West Pakistan where he began practising law in the West Pakistan High Court.[citation needed]
Judicial career
He was elected secretary of the High Court Bar in 1964 and was raised to the bench of the then West Pakistan High Court in 1967. Patel was elevated to the Supreme Court on 7 January 1976.[2]
On 24 March 1981, General Zia ul Haq issued a Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO) and asked the Justices of the High Courts and Supreme Court to take oath on it. Patel refused to take oath and resigned.[1] Had Patel not resigned, he would have become the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. After his resignation from the Supreme Court, he devoted the rest of his life to waging a crusade for the rights of the oppressed and downtrodden. In 1990, he became the second Pakistani to be elected a member of the exclusive International Commission of Jurists (ICJ).
Important decisions
Patel was in the minority in a split decision of 4–3 that upheld the decision of Lahore High Court that handed down the death penalty to former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.[citation needed]
Publications
1989, Military Dictatorship in Pakistan and the role of Judges (in English and Urdu), by Dorab Patel.
1964, Testaments of Liberals: Jinnah Papers (in English only), by Dorab Patel
