ISLAMABAD, Feb 28: Defending the prime minister against contempt charges before the Supreme Court, Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan ended up on Tuesday calling one witness from his list of three — and that too as a defence witness to present and certify summaries submitted as evidence by the prosecution.

In his earlier submission the counsel had requested summoning of three persons as court witnesses.

Consequently, a seven-judge bench headed by Justice Nasirul Mulk disposed of the application and asked Cabinet Secretary Nargis Sethi to appear on March 7.

She will record her statement about the summaries dated May 21 and Sept 21, 2010, on the basis of which Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani decided not to write a letter to Swiss authorities for reopening $60 million graft cases involving President Asif Ali Zardari.

The prime minister is facing the charge of disobeying Paragraph 178 of the court’s NRO judgment regarding revival of a request by the government for mutual legal assistance in the case relating to laundered money lying abroad, including in Switzerland.

Barrister Ahsan will also cross-examine Ms Sethi to establish, according to him, that the prime minister did not disobey or defy the court’s directives and there was no unwillingness on his part to implement them.

All the accused did was to act on the advice given to him through summaries in accordance with the rules, he said.

The lawyer said the court was hearing a case that might lead to imprisonment of the elected prime minister, but if he was sentenced he would go to jail in his individual capacity.

In that event, whether or not Mr Gilani would then remain the prime minister was subject to debate but the summoning of witnesses was necessary to help the court in reaching a fair decision, he said.

On Monday Barrister Ahsan had submitted an application requesting the bench to call Ms Sethi, former law minister Senator Babar Awan and Law Secretary Masood Chishti as court witnesses, instead of defence witnesses, but he admitted that two of them were reluctant to testify.

By summoning Ms Sethi, the counsel said, he wanted to inform the court about the duties of the prime minister who had to deal with about 40 summaries a day on different issues. It would also help him to raise the defence contained in the documents and related to the account of witnesses, he said.

Justice Asif Saeed Khosa said the bench and the entire country realised that the prime minister was a busy man and it appeared that the decision under discussion was a negligible duty.

“No, no it was a very important duty,” the counsel said, adding that in his response to the advice tendered to him through summaries, the prime minister had said the court should be informed about the situation.

When the court said the documents were available on record with it and the counsel might be allowed to use them as evidence, Barrister Ahsan said in that case his right of cross-examination would be restricted.

“It is my right to decide what is my defence,” he said.

The counsel said the bench should focus on the contempt matter rather than implementation.

Justice Sarmad Jalal Osmany said it was a larger bench for implementation of the court’s earlier order.