Permission to go abroad: Sindh High Court accepts Musharraf’s review plea

Ex-president says the SHC verdict will come into force after 15 days, but he needs to travel abroad soon.

ISLAMABAD/ KARACHI:

A day after winning his battle against official curbs on his travel, General (retired) Pervez Musharraf on Friday approached the court once again to get the permission for leaving the country as soon as possible.

Musharraf has filed a review petition with the Sindh High Court (SHC), which has been accepted for hearing, his lawyer and court officials said.

In April, the federal government had imposed travel ban on the retired general to ensure his presence in the country during the pendency of high-profile treason trial against him.

A two-judge SHC bench struck down on Thursday the interior ministry’s memorandum of placing his name on the Exit Control List, observing that ‘freedom of movement was the fundamental right of every citizen’.

However, the same bench also suspended the operation of their own order for 15 days to enable the federal government, if it desired so, to appeal against this order before the Supreme Court.

In his review plea, Pervez Musharraf has said the SHC verdict will come into force after 15 days, but he needs to travel abroad as soon as possible in view of the deteriorating health conditions of his ailing mother. Besides, he himself needs to undergo a surgery of spinal cord, the lawyer said.

The court has been requested to review its verdict and cut short the 15-day time to allow him to leave the country at the earliest. The court officials said the review plea had been accepted and would be fixed before the same bench for hearing.

Special court dismisses application for record

Meanwhile, Justice Faisal Arab-led three-judge special court on Friday rejected Musharraf’s plea to provide him all documents relevant to his case as it termed it a premature move. Musharraf, through his counsel Farogh Naseem, had sought all official record related to his case to prove his innocence but the court in its Friday’s order held that the application in hand had been filed at a stage which was premature for the exercise of the powers available in the referred provisions.

The order said the process of evidence was yet to start and the right of the accused to enter upon his defence was still available to him; therefore, there was no need for an order as prayed for at this stage.

“The accused [Musharraf] shall, however, be at liberty to seek production of the documents during the course of evidence and it would be for this court to decide as to whether such documents ought to be produced for a just decision of the case,” the order said.

“The application is dismissed being pre-mature,” the bench noted as it adjourned the hearing till June 17 for the purpose of recording of evidence.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 14^th, 2014.