High treason case: Top court turns down Dogar’s plea

Ex-CJP had requested the court to remove his name from proceedings

ISLAMABAD: The top court has declined former chief justice Abdul Hameed Dogar’s plea to suspend the special court’s order, which directed the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to record his statement in the high treason case.

On Tuesday, the three-judge apex court bench, headed by Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, took up Dogar’s petition against the dismissal of his plea by the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on December 9.



The tribunal established to try former army chief Pervez Musharraf under Article 6 of the Constitution in November 2015 had ordered the investigation team to record new statements of the retired general, ex-CJP Dogar, former Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and Zahid Hamid. Later on, Dogar challenged the order before the IHC, which after the preliminary hearing, dismissed the plea as non-maintainable.

In the Supreme Court, Dogar’s counsel contended the former top judge had nothing to do with the proclamation of emergency on November 3, 2007, as it was an executive action.

He claimed neither the special court nor the IHC had the powers under the Criminal Law Amendment (Special Court) Act 1976 to order investigation against people whose names were not included in the accused list forwarded by the federal government. The Supreme Court’s 14-member bench had held Musharraf individually responsible for proclamation of emergency, he argued.

Dogar’s counsel added that under the principle of tricotomy, the ex-CJP had nothing to do with the functioning of the executive.

He said the special court’s order that his client would not have been elevated as the chief justice if he had not consented to the proclamation of emergency and Provisional Constitutional Order of 2007 was not only “perverse” but “tantamount to demeaning the stature of superior courts”.

Dogar’s counsel requested the bench to issue a stay order against the special court judgment. The court, however, declined his plea. The hearing was adjourned till next week.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 20^th, 2016.