August 17, 2006	Thursday	Rajab 21, 1427

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LAHORE, Aug 16: Senior lawyer A.K. Dogar has listed nine ‘very important’ cases primarily questioning the legality of the military take-over and steps taken later, which are pending adjudication before the Supreme Court.

In a press statement issued here on Wednesday, he that said emboldened by the statement of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry that no-one would be allowed to deviate from the 1973 Constitution, he would request the apex court to take up his petitions for decision on certain additional law points which were not raised in identical petitions in the past.

Mr Dogar, who is also the president of the Pakistan Lawyers Forum, said the general impression about the superior judiciary was that it always supported the military dictators.

He said the decision in the Pakistan Steel Mills case was also not as impressive as others thought because the Supreme Court had not called into question the steps taken by the regime to dispose of the vital national asset at a throwaway price.

The apex court also brushed away important area of the regime’s entrenchment to perpetuate and even politicise the armed forces of the country.

According to Mr Dogar, the constitutional petition through which the Pakistan Lawyers Forum had challenged the military take-over had been lying pending since January 2000.

Similarly, the petitions which called into question the referendum was not taken up since February 2004 and those against the LFO and the 17th Constitutional amendment since June 2005.