ISLAMABAD, June 13: The Supreme Judicial Council on Wednesday surrendered its records relating to the presidential reference against Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry to the Supreme Court after the court overruled the government lawyer’s plea that the record was ‘protected’.
Justice Khalilur Rehman Ramday, who heads the 13-member larger bench of the court hearing the chief justice’s challenge to the reference, told lawyer Ahmad Raza Qasuri that “nothing is protected from the Supreme Court”.
The records were presented to the bench by SJC’s secretary when Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan, fighting the case of the chief justice, informed that at the back of the paper bearing the council’s March 10 summons, Justice Chaudhry had written a note about his “detention” inside his official residence and sought the help of brother judges.
A similar request had been submitted by the CJ in the council on March 13, stating in detail his “incarceration” and the treatment meted out to him and his family, but the council had told him that it was concerned only with the reference and did not intend to convert its proceedings into a civil suit, Barrister Ahsan recalled.
However, he said, on that day Attorney-General Makhdoom Ali Khan, who had appeared on notice before the council, suggested to the chief justice that he should consult his counsel for some time but the CJ asked how could he consult his lawyers when he had not seen the reference?
Later, the family got in touch with the outside world through an SMS from the mobile phone of the CJ’s younger daughter, Barrister Ahsan said.
Advocate Ahmed Raza Qasuri, representing the federal government, objected to the summoning of the record, saying these were privileged documents and could not be presented before an open court.
“Nothing is protected from the Supreme Court,” Justice Ramday observed, adding that the court was asking for the records to check the hand-written message of the CJ that he was not being allowed to meet his counsel.
“We are not discussing defence or nuclear matters or a submarine deal, rather a trial of the CJ who himself is demanding his trial in the open,” Barrister Ahsan said. He recalled that he had not uttered a single word about the council’s proceedings though he had argued for 18 hours.
Barrister Ahsan also recalled that senior advocate Sharifuddin Pirzada had supported the demand of the CJ by saying the proceedings before the council should be open if a judge himself was asking for it.
The CJ remained under detention till March 16, he said, while the March 13 orders of the SJC to let the CJ meet his counsel were also flouted and he was not allowed to meet anyone.
On manhandling, he said, President Gen Pervez Musharraf had accepted in an interview with a television channel that the CJ had been manhandled, although he had not been pulled through his hair.
On Wednesday, the atmosphere inside the court become tense for some time when Advocate Qasuri accused the counsel of the CJ of being funded from abroad and playing with the destiny of the country by tarnishing the image of the president.
“Look at Afghanistan and Iraq being destabilised while Iran is on the hit list, but the president is trying his level best to watch the interests of the country,” he said, and requested the court to decide the question of maintainability of the petition first.
However, he was not supported by his senior colleagues Sharifuddin Pirzada, Malik Qayyum and the attorney-general on this question.
When the bench sought the opinion of the lawyers to order the press not to report the incident, Barrister Ahsan said the court should not “micro manage” the press.
