ISLAMABAD, May 2: In a surprising development, the government on Wednesday requested the Supreme Court to expand the five-member bench hearing identical petitions, including that of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, into a full court.
Advocate Ibrahim Satti — who made the request on behalf of Sharifuddin Pirzada, representing President Gen Pervez Musharraf — said in
the application to the Supreme Court that the five-member bench was open to question on various grounds because it comprised four junior judges and an ad hoc one whose appointment had been challenged in the apex court.
The government side opposed the idea of full court when on April 27 the chief justice had requested formation of a full court comprising all judges of the Supreme Court.
The government had then argued that fixing of a matter for a particular date and constitution of a bench to hear a particular case was the prerogative of the chief justice and no party to the case had any right to ask for the same.
The five-member bench had been formed by Acting Chief Justice Rana Bhagwandas on Saturday last to take up from May 7 a number of petitions, including one by Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry against the formation of the SJC and challenging the president’s move to file a reference against him.
Headed by Justice M. Javed Buttar, other judges in the larger bench were Justice Nasirul Mulk, Justice Raja Fayyaz Ahmed, Justice Ijaz Ahmed and Justice Hamid Ali Mirza.
Even if the three senior judges hearing the reference while sitting in the SJC and Justice Sardar Mohammad Raza Khan were excluded, the government application said, Justice M. Javed Buttar was still junior to five judges – Justice Khalilur Rehman Ramday, Justice Mohammad Nawaz Abbasi, Justice Faqir Mohammad Khokhar, Justice Falak Sher and Justice Mian Shakirullah Jan.
The exclusion of the five senior judges from the bench was inexplicable, the application observed.
Similarly, the next three members of the bench – Justice Nasirul Mulk, Justice Raja Fayyaz Ahmed and Justice Chaudhry Ijaz Ahmed – were also junior to Justice Tassaduq Hussain Jillani and Justice Saiyed Saeed Ashhad, the exclusion of whom from the bench was also difficult to understand, the application said.
It said the respondents (the referring authority in the chief justice’s petition) had a legitimate expectation that the acting chief justice would fix the matter for hearing before a full court following the precedent in the 1998 Asad Ali case.
The respondents would not have filed the application if the acting chief justice had constituted a bench comprising senior-most judges of the court to hear the matter, it said.
ISLAMABAD, May 2: In a surprising development, the government on Wednesday requested the Supreme Court to expand the five-member bench hearing identical petitions, including that of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, into a full court.
