High treason case: SHC seeks FIA report on actions taken against Musharraf

No action taken by FIA despite govt undertaking, says petitioner.

KARACHI:

Sindh High Court (SHC) on Thursday directed that a report be submitted before it regarding the action the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) took against former dictator Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf for abrogating the Constitution.

Agha Syed Attaullah Shah, the chairman of the Rah-e-Raast Trust (RRT), had gone to the court against the FIA for allegedly not registering case against Musharraf despite an undertaking submitted by the federal government to the court.

The petitioner said the former president had abrogated and subverted the Constitution on November 3, 2007 by declaring emergency.

“Musharraf being the then chief of the army staff put many judges of the superior courts in wrongful confinement,” the petitioner stated in his plea, filed in 2011.

The petitioner argued that the Supreme Court’s full bench had later declared the imposition of the PCO and emergency as unconstitutional through an order passed on July 31, 2009 and the trustees of the RRT had authorised the petitioner to approach the FIA and file a petition in the high court for initiating legal action under Sections 2 and 3 of the High Treason (Punishment) Act against Musharraf.

According to the petitioner, he approached the FIA authorities for registration of his complaint, but no action had been initiated.

The petitioner told the two-judge bench headed by Justice Munib Akhtar that the high court had disposed of his petition on March 9, 2011 in view of the undertaking given by a deputy attorney general that the FIA would take action.

“But, no action has been taken to date,” he pleaded.

Deputy attorney general Mohsin Imam informed the court that he had been assigned the case recently, and requested for time to seek details from the FIA.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 4^th, 2013.