SC admits petition on saving army, ISI chiefs

Plea to be heard by a judicial bench.

ISLAMABAD:

The Supreme Court on Tuesday admitted a petition seeking court’s assistance to prevent the sacking of the army and intelligence chiefs.

Filed by a lawyer, Fazal Karim Butt, the plea would be heard by a judicial bench, observed Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry.

Butt had based his petition on media reports that the government was planning to sack Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Chief Lt Gen Ahmad Shuja Pasha over their stance in the Memogate scandal.

The petitioner pleaded that the court would have to ‘restrain’ the government to protect the military chiefs.

In the last hearing, the government had told the Supreme Court it had no intention of sacking the army and ISI chiefs for their ‘unconstitutional and illegal’ replies in the Memogate hearing.

Attorney General Maulvi Anwarul Haq, meanwhile, had also dismissed the claims as media speculation.

Dismissing the registrar’s earlier objections on the petition’s maintainability, the chief justice said the registrar “cannot raise such objections.”

The chief justice asked the attorney general to take directives from the government and inform it if there were any reservations on the plea.

Haq replied that the court could admit the petition for regular hearing and if the government had any reservations on its maintainability, they will be forwarded to the court.

The chief justice also remarked that the petition could be heard in a chamber, but the court wanted to keep the public aware of the proceedings in the case.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 8^th, 2012.