April 13, 2008	Sunday	Rabi-us-Sani 6, 1429

ISLAMABAD, April 12: Deposed chief justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry on Saturday dispelled speculations about his willingness to say goodbye as the top adjudicator under a government formula after being restored by parliament and insisted that he would continue in the highest office till superannuation in 2013.

“When I did not succumb to the pressure and said no to top generals present at the President’s camp office in Rawalpindi on March 9, 2007, with then army chief Pervez Musharraf, then why I should resign now,” the President of Rawalpindi High Court Bar, Sardar Ismatullah Khan, quoted Justice Iftikhar as saying. Mr Ismatullah was talking to Dawn after meeting the deposed CJ on Saturday.

Headed by Sardar Ismatullah, a delegation of the high court bar association had called on Justice Iftikhar at his residence in the judges’ colony.

On May 29, 2007, Justice Iftikhar had filed an affidavit before a 13-member bench of the Supreme Court hearing a petition challenging the presidential reference against him.

In the affidavit, the chief justice had stated that top intelligence officials had pressured him into resigning, and after keeping him confined to the office for over five hours, he was allowed to leave in a flagless car.

According to the statement, those who had pressurised him were the then directors-general of Military Intelligence (MI), Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Intelligence Bureau (IB), the president’s Chief of Staff (COS) and an unnamed official.

Sardar Ismatullah said Justice Iftikhar had dismissed as disinformation speculations of an understanding with the coalition government that he would resign immediately after reinstatement.

“This is incorrect and disinformation,” was the reply when Justice Iftikhar was specifically asked about rumours doing the rounds that he would be required to resign after reinstatement.

“My tenure will end in the year 2013. Till then I will continue to serve the nation as the chief justice,” Sardar Ismatullah quoted Justice Iftikhar as saying.

Meanwhile, Athar Minallah, an advocate, also quoted Justice Iftikhar as saying that he (the deposed chief justice) had struggled not for his person but for the supremacy of the constitution and independence of the judiciary and “there is no question of any compromise.”

Mr Minallah said the raid on Justice Khalilur Rahman Ramday’s residence pointed to a conspiracy against lawyers to “push us to the wall”.

Incidents in Karachi (manhandling of former chief minister Arbab Ghulam Rahim) and Lahore (roughing up of former minister Dr Sher Afgan) were part of the conspiracy, he claimed.