September 02, 2008	Tuesday	Ramazan 1, 1429

ISLAMABAD, Sept 1: Islamabad High Court (IHC) Chief Justice Sardar Mohammad Aslam here on Monday dismissed the petition of Shahid Orakzai that challenged the appointment of four provincial chief justices of high courts as presiding officers for the presidential election scheduled for September 6.

Mr Orakzai, in his petition before the IHC, had taken the view that under the constitution, chief justices of all the provincial high courts did not come under the administrative authority of the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC).Under the constitution, the CEC cannot himself be a presiding officer for the meeting of all parliamentarians, but he can only be a returning officer, he said.

The petitioner argued that the CEC had nominated himself as a presiding officer for the meeting of the parliamentarians in violation to the constitution.

The petitioner also pointed out before the court that under the law, the Federal Ministry of Finance could not pay for the four chief justices for their services as presiding officer during the presidential elections. He said there was a legal lacuna that who would make payment to the chief justices.

During proceedings of this case, the petitioner also argued before the court that “the date for the presidential election was not fixed by the CEC, but it was fixed by some other who wanted to keep the election campaign short for political gains”.

Meanwhile, Defence of Human Rights (DHR) Chairman Khalid Khwaja filed a writ petition before the IHC for registration of a criminal case against former president Pervez Musharraf and prime minister Shaukat Aziz for allegedly abducting him January 26, 2007.

According to the petitioner, he was falsely implicated in different cases and illegally kept in custody for a long time.

The petitioner stated that he tried to register an FIR against the nominated accused but his application was not entertained by the police despite the fact he remained under the illegal custody of the police for quite a long time.

The petitioner has stated that all these illegal and unlawful acts against him were done on the behest of Gen (retired) Musharraf, Shaukat Aziz, former interior minister Aftab Sherpao, Islamabad chief commissioner Khalid Pervez, the then deputy commissioner Mohammad Ali and others.

He has prayed to the court to issue directions for registration of FIRs against these persons.