A three-member bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, was hearing the case.
Former chief of Military Intelligence (MI) Brigadier (retd) Hamid Saeed submitted a written response before the court. Saeed said that he was the heading the Sindh unit of the MI.
Former Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief Assad Durrani had alleged Saeed had disbursed money to politicians.
The former MI chief presented a 21-year-old diary before the judicial bench and said that it has each and every detail of all accounts.
He, however, requested the court to keep the first eight paragraphs of the diary classified.
Saeed prayed to the court to make all the details part of the investigation otherwise “the entire exercise will be futile.”
The chief justice assured him that the court, for the moment, will keep the first eight paragraphs classified.
Attorney General Irfan Qadir, on behalf of the Defence Ministry, presented a report regarding the transfer of Rs80 million to ISI’s account.
Looking at the report, Justice Chaudhry observed that it was not the record the court had sought. Justice Jawad S Khwaja directed the attorney general to present bank statements to the court, so that the truth could be known.
Counsel for former army chief Gen (retd) Mirza Aslam Beg, Akram Shaikh, prayed to the court that the ISI should be taken from the Chief Executive’s control and be given back to the army. Justice Chaudhry told Shaikh that it was not the court’s job to do so and that Beg headed the Army from 1988 to 1991, he should have requested former president Ghulam Ishaq Khan to do so.
Shaikh informed the court that his client was awarded with a ‘Medal of Democracy’ by the Pakistan Peoples Party.
The chief justice observed that anyone could be awarded such medals and that it did not make any difference.
The court adjourned the hearing till October 19.
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Now I realize why Justice is Blind!
Its a ggod one
Good
Presedent house @ present is PP Head Quarter.
G.Khan UK
@PS: I am sure there are politcal activities happening in the presidency, however, this case is about distribution of money, fraud and surcumventing the process to buy the election and the president at the time although apolitical (Ghulam Ishaq Khan), perceptively an honest men (by our national standards), used his power to steal people's mandate and used ISI and military instition to buy political leaders by spending nations money, that's an issue. We have to see these thing objectively. One more thing, the judgement on this case was already written by the justice Saeed uzzam siddique, I am not sure why the current bench is going through the motion, all it should have done is to announce the judgement. The case is also about the institutional over reach and meddling into the political process, which had a far reaching impact on the nation, similarly, the judges action to legitimize military takeover by ayub, zia, and Musharraf
Anybody who asserts that the present presidency is acting apolitically needs to have his brain checked. Right from the oath taking ceremony when political slogans were raised down to the clear assertion that after the next election a certain political party/group will form government in all provinces, the presidency has less been a symbol of state than the central office of a political party. In between, we have seen countless meetings chaired by the president to maneuver and manipulate for the coalition to keep clinging to the power. If this is not the presidency indulging in politics than what will be, one fails to understand. Who needs a 'political cell' in the presidency when the whole presidency is political.
In pakistan everything is possible. It seems everything is happening accroding to a script.