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Salman Akram Raja (Urdu: سلمان اکرم راجا), is a Pakistani attorney and politician who has provided legal counsel to numerous prominent Pakistani political figures, including past Prime Ministers of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan. He has been serving as the secretary general of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) since 7 September 2024 and as head of legal affairs for the party since 21 August 2024.

Early life and education

Raja was born to Raja Muhammad Akram, who was a senior advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan and a member of the Lahore Bar Association, into a Punjabi Rajput family of the Bangial clan with roots in the village of Arazi Hasnal in the Rawalpindi District.

He completed his B.A at University of Cambridge, and earned his LL.M degree from Harvard Law School and the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.

Career

Legal career

Raja has been practising law since 1992 and is an advocate at the Supreme Court of Pakistan. He is widely recognised as a leader in dispute resolution, specialising in corporate, taxation, commercial banking, and competition law. With extensive experience in constitutional and administrative law, he has represented clients in notable cases before the Supreme Court of Pakistan, involving constitutional interpretation.

Raja was part of the legal team that advocated for Nawaz Sharif during the Panama Papers case. Additionally, Raja provided legal representation for Imran Khan in the Nikah during Iddah case, among other legal matters.

He represented the PTI in the Reserved seats case at the Supreme Court of Pakistan, where he argued in favour of granting parliamentary reserved seats to PTI members. The court ruled in favour of PTI's position, which was seen as a significant outcome for the party.

Academic career

Raja has served as a Visiting Lecturer in Company and Commercial Law at the Law School of Lahore University of Management Sciences, Pakistan's leading university, focusing his expertise on Constitutional Law.

Political career

Raja was a candidate for NA-128 Lahore-XII in the 2024 Pakistani general election, running as a PTI-affiliated independent candidate. Independent journalists such as Secunder Kermani expected him to overwhelmingly win the seat, based on voter interviews. However, while Form 45 from the Election Commission of Pakistan showed Raja with a decisive lead, the more final Form 47 reported Aun Chaudhry of Istehkam-e-Pakistan Party as having won 172,576 votes to Raja's 159,024 votes. Raja, PTI supporters, and independent journalists claimed the ECP Form 47 results showed clear evidence of rigging by the Army, and the Lahore High Court issued a stay on a final declaration of the results by ECP until a hearing could be fixed to investigate the matter. He was appointed as head of legal affairs for PTI on 21 August 2024, and was later appointed as the secretary general of PTI on 7 September 2024.

Views

Human rights and women's rights

Raja is recognised for his advocacy for human rights and women's rights in Pakistan. Referring to the 2021 Minar-e-Pakistan mass sexual assault involving a female social media celebrity, he commented that contrary to Pakistan's perceived cultural values of decency, the perpetrators at Minar-e-Pakistan displayed a lack of self-restraint, deviating from societal expectations to protect the victim, or any TikToker. Raja criticised the reactions across various media platforms, which swiftly shifted blame onto the victim, labelling her as an attention-seeking conspirator against Pakistan. He noted how a superficial examination of approved Pakistani textbooks under the Single National Curriculum since 2020 reflects a normative portrayal of girls and women in hijab or purdah, who abstain from activities like music and singing, as the idealised standard of a 'good woman/child', a standard the assaulted woman failed to meet. This portrayal contrasts with Raja's own upbringing and the freedoms he wants for his daughters, who are musicians.

Writings

Raja has written articles and op-eds for English-language newspapers such as Dawn News and The News International.

His academic publications include:

• 'Islamisation of Laws in Pakistan,' South Asian Journal, vol. 1, no. 2, October–December 2003, pp. 94–109.

References

1. ^ Salman Akram Raja (PDF), Government of Punjab, retrieved 8 February 2024
2. Inam R. Sehri (9 June 2022). The Living History of Pakistan (2016–2017): Volume VII · Volume 7. Grosvenor House Publishing. ISBN 978-1-80-381069-0.
3. Iqbal, Nasir. "Withholding evidence a big gamble, SC tells Hussain's lawyer". Dawn. Dawn Group. Retrieved 8 February 2024.
4. "Imran Khan, Bushra Bibi Sentenced To Seven Years In Nikkahnama Case". The Friday Times. 3 February 2024. Retrieved 8 February 2024.
5. Hussain, Abid. "Imran Khan's PTI scores major win in Pakistan battle for reserved seats". Al Jazeera. Retrieved 15 September 2024.
6. https://twitter.com/SecKermani/status/1755878571489263654
7. "LHC bars ECP from issuing NA-128 results on Salman Akram Raja's plea". 9 February 2024.
8. https://twitter.com/umairjav/status/1755876047663321413
9. "Salman Akram Raja – Head of Legal Affairs". Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf. 21 August 2024. Retrieved 15 September 2024.
10. "Salman Akram Raja replaces Omar Ayub as PTI's secretary general". Business Recorder. 7 September 2024. Retrieved 14 September 2024.
11. Raja, Salman Akram (3 September 2021). "Going all wrong (Part – I)". The News International www.thenews.com.pk. Paragraphs 1- 4. Archived from the original on 15 March 2022. Retrieved 13 February 2024. Coming at the heels of the Minar-e-Pakistan 'incident', the prime minister's recent lament that English medium schools are creating a class of individuals disconnected from their cultural moorings...How was the mob at the Minar able to entirely avoid the local cultural landscape with its deep offerings of decency? They most likely did not attend elite English medium schools. What caused their severance from restraints, religious or other, that ought to have shielded the trapped woman? Even a Tik-Tokker. How does one begin to understand the reactions splashed across electronic, print and social media platforms that rapidly transformed the hapless tossed around, disrobed body of the molested woman into an attention-seeking conspirator against Pakistan?..Soon enough, the woman had descended in the narrative of the social media rabble to the rank of a * 'fahisha'. Highly-placed Aitchisonian class-fellows sheltered behind the cover of 'forwarded as received' posts to ask why anyone should be concerned about what had happened to a 'tawaif'. When I protested, one of my childhood friends called me 'anti-Pakistan and anti-Islam'..... Many others on WhatsApp groups, mature highly educated men with much exposure to the world at levels of considerable success, were content to move on. 'The boys must be punished but the woman asked for it.' There was little concern about the genealogy of the Minar incident. Why had a random set of ordinary Pakistanis turned into a gouging mob? What constituted the chord of empathy that seemed to exist between the mob and my friends?" * Linguistic Note: The usage of Urdu language words 'fahisha' and 'tawaif' in quote context are referring to slut shaming.
12. Raja, Salman Akram (4 September 2021). "Going all wrong – Part II". The News International www.thenews.com.pk. Paragraph 9–12 (from bottom para 2–5). Archived from the original on 15 March 2022. Retrieved 13 February 2024. ...went over to obtain a complete set of the Single National Curriculum textbooks...for classes 1 to 5...I was struck by an illustration of a young girl, no more than five years old, playing with her doll and a teddy bear at home. The young child was in hijab, her hair securely covered and an abaya-like covering across her torso. The teddy and the doll were not in hijab. A tour through all the textbooks, regardless of subject, confirmed the overwhelming norm of the 'good woman/child' that the books seek to affirm. The woman at Minar-e-Pakistan failed that norm. So would have my mother and the women I grew up with. As will my daughters. Each plays an instrument. They sing...I turned to the curriculum statement looking for the music and art content. Nothing came up. I then discovered that the Punjab Curriculum and Textbook Board is required, since 2020, to have all its publications and approved textbooks vetted by the Muttahida Ulema Board..
13. "Profile". Dawn News.
14. "Profile". The News International.

• Living people
• 21st-century Pakistani lawyers
• Pakistani barristers
• Alumni of the University of Cambridge
• Alumni of SOAS University of London
• Harvard Law School alumni
• People from Rawalpindi District