PHOTO: REUTERS
The federal government still believes former president Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf was solely responsible for proclaiming emergency on November 3, 2007, the top state prosecutor has told the Supreme Court.
On Tuesday, a three-judge apex court, bench headed by Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, was hearing a petition filed by Abdul Hameed Dogar. The former chief justice has appealed the Islamabad High Court’s (IHC) decision not to bar the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) from investigating him in the high treason case against Musharraf. Dogar’s counsel Iftikhar Gilani said the FIA wanted to interrogate him on Tuesday on the basis of the Special Court’s order and if the investigators questioned the former CJP, this application would be infructuous.
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The bench, however, declined his request and said they could not stop the investigation.
The top court for the third time has rejected Dogar’s request to grant stay against the Special Court’s order of November 21, 2015.
The tribunal had ordered the joint investigation team questioning Musharraf to also investigate the role of former prime minister Shaukat Aziz, then chief justice Dogar and then law minister Zahid Hamid. While the IHC had overturned the order on the respondents’ writ petitions, the Special Court reordered investigations against the former PM, CJP and law minister.
The apex court bench questioned under what law the Special Court had ordered the investigation against Justice (retd) Dogar. The judges also said the court would examine whether the special tribunal could issue such directions by assuming a suo motu jurisdiction.
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Advocate Gilani also argued that a number of witnesses testified before the Special Court but none of them took Dogar’s name on collaborating or abetting the proclamation of emergency.
He read the judgments of the Supreme Court on the Sindh High Court Bar Association’s case, Musharraf’s review petition and the Sindh High Court’s judgment on Maulvi Iqbal Haider’s petition. He also read the federation’s stance, which it adopted before the IHC against the Special Court order of November 27, 2014.
Gilani argued that all these judgments and the federation’s stand before IHC showed Musharraf was solely responsible for the acts of November 3, 2007.
Attorney General of Pakistan (AGP) Salman Aslam Butt told the judges the government believed the former president single-handedly imposed the emergency and clamped the Provisional Constitutional Order when Justice Tariq Pervaiz asked whether or not the federation still believed so.
Gilani contended that Musharraf’s lawyers had submitted a long list of witnesses, requesting the court they all be made party in the treason trial.
Musharraf’s counsel Farogh Naseem will present his arguments today (Wednesday).
Published in The Express Tribune, February 24th, 2016.
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