A day at the Supreme Court

Letter March 06, 2012
Asghar Khan case: I would recommend all parties come for this hearing and give their inputs on this important case.

LAHORE: I was sitting at the Pakistan Supreme Court in room number one. Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, and two other judges were listening to important cases of the day, which included the Asghar Khan case on the alleged funding through the ISI, the Imran khan case on electoral rolls, the Punjab Bank fraud case and an electoral reform petition of the Workers Party Pakistan, among others. Advocates of the PTI, the MQM, the ANP, the Sindh United Party, the Awami Party, the Jamaat-e-Islami and the Labour Party were also present there. The MQM was there to bargain for a delay in the hearing of a petition, in which several resolutions are being sought to include the voices of ordinary citizens in the election process.

I was surprised to see all the hard work put forth by this bench. The hearing commenced in the morning and lasted for over seven hours without a lunch interval. The bench was still hearing the cases when I left at 4:30 pm. It seemed that the Chief Justice enjoyed his work and felt a lot of responsibility in hearing each case in detail. He was hard on the officials and soft on ordinary citizens who approached the Supreme Court. I would recommend that all parties come for this hearing and give their inputs on this important case.

Farooq Tariq

Labour Party Pakistan

Published in The Express Tribune, March 7th, 2012.