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| October 6, 2005 | Thursday | Ramazan 1, 1426 |
SC takes note of derogatory letter from PM Sectt
ISLAMABAD, Oct 5: The Supreme Court on Wednesday took strong exception to a “contemptuous” and “derogatory” letter sent from the Prime Minister Secretariat to President Pervez Musharraf objecting to a judgment of the court regarding medical facility to lower civilian officers in the military hospitals.
Major (retired) Pervez Masih, Section Officer (Public) at the Prime Minister Secretariat, had written the letter to the president on July 12, 2005, requesting him to take notice of the Supreme Court’s November 10, 1998, decision in which it had allowed the treatment of petitioner Abdul Waheed’s wife at the PNS Shifa/Naval Hospital as a special case, but held that this should not be treated as a precedence for other Pakistan Navy low-grade civilian employees.
Taking a suo motu notice, the chief justice had directed his office to treat the letter as contempt of court and register an application in this regard.
When the matter was taken up on Wednesday by a three-member bench comprising Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, Justice M. Javed Buttar and Justice Raja Fayyaz Ahmed, it was told that the PM Secretariat had denied existence of a person in the name of Maj (retired) Pervez Masih in the secretariat.
Maj (retired) Masih was also not present in the court despite earlier direction to appear on Wednesday.
The court directed Deputy Attorney General Raja Irshad to find out about the identity and whereabouts of the person from the General Headquarters (GHQ), Prime Minister’s Secretariat and other sources, and adjourned the case for the third week of November.
Later, Raja Irshad told Dawn that the PM Secretariat had initiated a high-level inquiry into the matter and had also reiterated that no such person was working in the secretariat.
In the letter, the writer had drawn the attention of the president over growing unrest among the lower civilian employees in the armed forces for lack of medical facilities in the military hospital.
The writer had claimed that the prime minister had also taken serious view of this state of affairs in MES (military engineering services) where medical facility was not allegedly available to the families of retired and serving lower civilian employees.
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