March 16, 2007	Friday	Safar 26, 1428

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LAHORE, March 15: Lahore High Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Husain Chaudhry during in-camera proceedings dismissed a petition, seeking release of non-functional CJP Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry.

The chief justice has taken up the petition as an objection case after the LHC registrar office had refused to entertain it, stating that it should be filed before appropriate LHC bench at Rawalpindi.

Later, petitioner M.D Tahir advocate had filed a fresh petition on Tuesday after addressing objections the registrar office had raised.

His counsel, Dr Farooq Hasan, said the objections had no legal value because the detenu was the chief justice of Pakistan.

The LHC chief justice after taking up the petition upheld the objections of the registrar office, and dismissed it.

The petitioner had submitted that police at the behest of the unconstitutional and mala fide actions of the state confined the non-functional CJP at his residence in Judicial Colony, Islamabad.

The petitioner further stated that this tragic state of affairs by a regime of the engineer of a military coup in 1999 was tantamount to the worst-ever exhibition of a dictatorial rule in country’s history.

The removal and current detention of the CJP by Gen Musharraf was unprecedented not only in Pakistan, but in the entire British Commonwealth where judicial practice was based on the British legal system, the petitioner said.

The petitioner had prayed to the court that the non-functional CJP was ordered to be set free from the unlawful and unconstitutional detention being patently void and mala fide.