Hearing the petition filed by lawyer Fazal Karim Butt, Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry observed that a judicial bench will be constituted to hear the plea.
Rebuffing the registrar’s earlier objection on the the petition’s maintainability, the chief justice said that the registrar “cannot raise such objections.”
The chief justice asked Attorney General Maulvi Anwarul Haq to take directives from the government and inform the court if the government had any reservations on the plea. AG Haq replied to the court saying that the court can admit the petition for regular hearing as per its rules and if the government has any reservations on the maintainability of the petition, it will be informed to the court.
The Supreme Court directed the registrar to present the plea to a judicial bench.
Chief Justice Chaudhry also remarked that the petition could be heard in a chamber, but that the court wanted to keep the public aware of the court’s proceedings in the case.
In the last hearing, the government had told the Supreme Court that it had no intention of sacking the army and ISI chiefs for their ‘unconstitutional and illegal’ replies in the Memogate hearing.
Butt had based his petition on media reports that the government was planning to sack General Kayani and Lt General Pasha over their stance in the Memogate scandal. In Butt’s view, the court would have to ‘restrain’ the government to protect the military heads.
However, the AG had dismissed the claims as media speculation.
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