Dual offices’ case adjourned for six weeks

DAG sought time on the grounds that the attorney general of Pakistan will appear in the matter.

KARACHI: A full bench of the Sindh High Court (SHC) adjourned, on Monday, the hearing of a case against President Asif Ali Zardari on a technicality raised by the federal law authorities. The deputy attorney general (DAG) sought time on the grounds that the attorney general of Pakistan (AGP) will appear in the matter.

The petitioner, Rasheed A Akhund, a lawyer and a Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) worker, questions Zardari holding the dual offices of president and co-chairperson of the PPP. He submitted that as president, Zardari is encroaching on the affairs of government by chairing and taking key decisions and forming various bodies. Zardari as president is merely a constitutional figure, he maintains, while the prime minister is the chief executive of the country.

The petitioner submitted that the office of the president requires Zardari to be apolitical but by holding the position of a party head he had become partisan and is disqualified from holding the president’s position.

A DAG told the bench, comprising Justice Mushir Alam, Justice Gulzar Ahmed and Justice Maqbool Bahar, that the AGP will appear in the petition. He then requested a further adjournment for six weeks. Earlier, the bench observed that the respondent, the president, had at last been served with notice of the petition.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 14^th, 2010.