Exit Control List: Musharraf’s counsel says govt misleading the court
SHC to take up ex-military ruler’s petition against travel ban today`.
Pervez Musharraf. PHOTO: FILE
KARACHI:
The Sindh High Court (SHC) will take up a constitutional petition today seeking the removal of retired general Pervez Musharraf’s name from the Exit Control List, as he is facing trial for alleged high treason.
Barrister Farogh Naseem contested the federal government’s contention that his client would try to abscond, saying it is ‘patently presumptuous’.
The former president’s lawyer filed an affidavit in rejoinder to the comments filed by the federal government, saying that the SHC is fully empowered to resolve questions of facts in the writ jurisdiction. Barrister Farogh Naseem submitted that the Supreme Court’s interim order on April 8, 2013 no longer holds after the disposal of the petition and final order in which no observation has been made regarding continuity of petitioner’s name in ECL.
He also brushed aside the federal government’s contention that the Supreme Court’s orders could only be interpreted by the SC itself. The lawyer clarified that the petitioner (Musharraf) had appealed to the court to pass an order in consonance with the SC’s order.
Responding to the federal government’s stand that the petitioner imposed a state of emergency and a Provisional Constitution Order on November 3, 2007 of his own volition, Barrister Naseem submitted that the matter is being taken up after a lapse of seven years and documentation pertaining to the imposition of emergency has been ‘deliberately destroyed or misplaced’.
He submitted that the respondents’ contention regarding possible punishment to Pervez Musharraf has confirmed the government’s ‘desire to afflict capital punishment upon the petitioner’. The government is ‘bent upon seeking a conviction and is therefore fabricating evidence against Musharraf’, Naseem added.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 7th, 2014.
The Sindh High Court (SHC) will take up a constitutional petition today seeking the removal of retired general Pervez Musharraf’s name from the Exit Control List, as he is facing trial for alleged high treason.
Barrister Farogh Naseem contested the federal government’s contention that his client would try to abscond, saying it is ‘patently presumptuous’.
The former president’s lawyer filed an affidavit in rejoinder to the comments filed by the federal government, saying that the SHC is fully empowered to resolve questions of facts in the writ jurisdiction. Barrister Farogh Naseem submitted that the Supreme Court’s interim order on April 8, 2013 no longer holds after the disposal of the petition and final order in which no observation has been made regarding continuity of petitioner’s name in ECL.
He also brushed aside the federal government’s contention that the Supreme Court’s orders could only be interpreted by the SC itself. The lawyer clarified that the petitioner (Musharraf) had appealed to the court to pass an order in consonance with the SC’s order.
Responding to the federal government’s stand that the petitioner imposed a state of emergency and a Provisional Constitution Order on November 3, 2007 of his own volition, Barrister Naseem submitted that the matter is being taken up after a lapse of seven years and documentation pertaining to the imposition of emergency has been ‘deliberately destroyed or misplaced’.
He submitted that the respondents’ contention regarding possible punishment to Pervez Musharraf has confirmed the government’s ‘desire to afflict capital punishment upon the petitioner’. The government is ‘bent upon seeking a conviction and is therefore fabricating evidence against Musharraf’, Naseem added.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 7th, 2014.