ISLAMABAD April 6: Jamaat-i-Islami Amir Qazi Hussain Ahmed on Saturday filed his second application in the Supreme Court for issuance of an urgent restraining order against President Gen Pervez Musharraf for announcing various steps in his speech on Friday.

In the petition, filed under order 33, rule 6, of the SC rules by Dr Farooq Hasan, the petitioner submitted that an application for an ad interim stay remained to be fixed for hearing in the apex court.

It prayed that the application was to restrain Gen Musharraf (respondent No.1) from taking steps which were in violation of the Supreme Court’s verdict in Zafar Ali Shah case.

The petitioner submitted that despite the limited authority vested in the respondent, he had ceaselessly tried to cling on to the reins of power under pretext of his indispensability for Pakistan and announced in a nationwide broadcast that he was proceeding to arrange a referendum.

The petition contested the economic figures and claims of adoption of strategies to assert, incorrectly, that the government’s performance had been praiseworthy, thereby concluding, again incorrectly on manifestly self serving premises, that the respondent had performed tremendously well. He (respondent) stated that as such he was entitled to amend the constitution, which was not amended in this manner or by a person who had admittedly usurped the authority of the state by intervention of the armed forces, the petition said.

It stated that the essence of the president’s speech was that he had the power to amend the constitution in a manner that perpetuated his rule, that he wanted to have a democracy which befell his conception of form of government, and that he wanted to create checks and balances by which he had the ultimate say.

It contended that the assertions were untenable, fallacious, mala fide and only couched on appealing terms of lexicography and semantics to camouflage his intent to hang on to power at the expense of the country’s image and human rights of the people.

The petitioner said that the respondent made the claims while a petition challenging the issues was pending in the court.

He said that as a commander of the army coup, the president was given a transient phase of authority by the SC to culminate with the holding of elections in October, but he decided to devise means to remain on the political horizon through illegitimate mechanism of a referendum.

The petitioner prayed that the respondent be asked to restore the constitution immediately and to stop politicising the armed forces by dismantling of institutions like the National Security Council and return of military personals from civil administration to their army positions.