SC asked to seek armed forces’ help

Petition filed seeking Supreme Court to enlist armed forces' help in implementing its different judgments.

ISLAMABAD: A former legal officer filed a constitutional petition on Friday in which she requested the Supreme Court to enlist the armed forces’ help in implementing its different judgments.  The petitioner, Afshan Ghazanfar, based her appeal on a sub-clause of Article 184.

Ghazanfar, who served as an assistant advocate-general in Punjab during the Musharraf regime, also urged the court to invoke Article 190 and direct the Chief of Army Staff, Chief of Air Staff, Chief of Naval Staff and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (JCSC) to take necessary steps for the implementation of the apex court’s judgments.

In case of non-implementation, the petition said, chiefs of all three forces and chairman of JCSC “may also be directed to take necessary action as they deem fit and appropriate.”

She also requested the court to form an “interim set-up and explore the possibility of mid-term elections in the country in accordance of the articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution” to curb corruption, nepotism and favoritism for a “prosperous future of Pakistan”.

Afshan, who is currently an working as a Supreme Court advocate, has named the ministries of defence and interior, chiefs of all three armed forces and chairman of JCSC, all chief ministers and the chief election commissioner respondents in her petition.

Praising the performance of the Supreme Court, she said it had pronounced “revolutionary and landmark judgments in recent years”, including the judgment of November 3, 2007, declaring the imposition of emergency ultra vires of the Constitution, annulling the NRO provisions, payment of compensation to the Kuwait war affectees, ensuring two per cent job quota for disabled persons, regularisation of thousands of daily wages employee of the Civil Aviation Authority, brining to book the accused allegedly involved in the Bank of Punjab loan scam, ensuring meritocracy and rule of law in promotion of officers to BS-22, empowering the Election Commission to not only disqualify but to initiate criminal proceedings against people holding fake degrees, directing the police authorities to probe the killing of two brothers in Sialkot, awarding of LNG contract by ignoring Fauji Foundation’s lowest bid and the construction of Makro-Habib Store on a playground in Karachi.

She said that all decisions were taken in the national interest but the desired results could not be achieved because all these rulings were not implemented.  At the end of the petition, she argued that no action is being suggested which is contrary to the Constitution as “democracy is to be protected by all means”.  She has also called for early hearing of her petition.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 18^th, 2010.