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| April 13, 2002 | Saturday | Muharram 29, 1423 |
SC not in a hurry to hear case against referendum
ISLAMABAD, April 12: The Supreme Court has no immediate plans of hearing the petitions challenging the assumption of office of the president by Gen Pervez Musharraf, and then holding referendum to extend his tenure to five years.
The petition was first filed by Qazi Hussain Ahmad, through Barrister Dr Farooq Hassan, and was followed by the Lahore High Court, Rawalpindi Bench Bar Association, and Moulvi Iqbal Haider of Awami Himayat Tehrik.
The first two petitions challenged the assumption of office of president by Musharraf, but Moulvi Iqbal Haider, approached the apex court for diametrically opposite reasons.
Moulvi Iqbal Haider, who has a reputation of having close association with “invisible powers” of the state, prayed the apex court to declare that there was no bar in the Constitution to prevent Musharraf from holding referendum to fill up the constitutional vacuum created after the resignation of the elected president, Mohammad Rafiq Tarar.
When contacted, the officials of the Supreme Court said there was no immediate plan of taking up the petition of Qazi Hussain Ahmad.
A court official, told Dawn that the petition of the Lahore High Court, Rawalpindi Bench Bar Association, was returned as it was not complete.
The petition was returned three days back, and the petitioner did not turn up again by making up the procedural lapses.
The official further said petition of Moulvi Iqbal Haider was also not complete as he had not attached the order of the Sindh High Court to whom he had assailed. Iqbal Haider had first approached the Sindh High Court attaining the same objective but the court dismissed his petition in limini.
The two main Bar associations, the Pakistan Bar Council and the Supreme Court Bar Association, have officially opposed the holding of referendum, but did not challenge it in any court of law.
The Bar leaders are meeting in Lahore on April 20, ten days before the holding of referendum to decide about their stance on the issue.
The Supreme Court Bar Association is headed by Hamid Khan, who is also Vice President of the Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf.
The PTI has publicly supported the idea of holding referendum.
Abdul Haleem Pirzada, former president of the SCBA and presently an active member of the Pakistan Bar Council, is also opposing the holding of referendum.
The people in the bar room, however, are of the view that after the engagement of Abdul Hafeez Pirzada to defend the government in the Supreme Court its plans of holding referendum, the position of Abdul Haleem must have softened a little.
Finding that the Supreme Court has no immediate plans of taking up its petition, Qazi Hussian Ahmad filed another application in the Supreme Court on Friday, praying that Gen Pervez Musharraf be restrained from unlawfully acting to implement the Chief Executive Order issued on April 10, as it was unconstitutional, void and of no legal effect.
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