ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Wednesday set a 30-day deadline for the authorities to bring former ambassador to the United States Hussain Haqqani back home after which no excuse will be accepted.

In compliance with an earlier directive, Foreign Affairs Secretary Tehmina Janjua and Interior Secretary Arshad Mirza appeared before the court which had taken up a suo motu case about the 2011 Memogate scandal.

On June 4, 2013, a nine-judge SC bench, headed by then chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, had directed the interior secretary to adopt legal measures to ensure Mr Haqqani’s return to Pakistan.

The former ambassador was at the centre of a controversy during the Pakistan Peoples Party government when he allegedly sent to former US military chief Admiral Mike Mullen a memorandum seeking direct US intervention to avert a possible overthrow of the civilian government by the military against the backdrop of the May 2, 2011 US raid in Abbottabad to kill Osama bin Laden.

Later, the Supreme Court constituted a judicial commission which had on June 12, 2012, held Mr Haqqani as the originator and architect of the memo.

On Wednesday, Federal Investigation Agency Director General Bashir Memon informed the court that a judicial magistrate had already issued arrest warrants for Mr Haqqani which would be sent to his residences in Karachi and Washington. After the arrest warrants, red warrants would be issued for which Interpol would also be approached, he said, adding that some time was needed to complete the entire procedure.

He also assured the court that a proper case would be registered in the US if Mr Haqqani preferred not to return.

The court regretted that the recommendations of the commission also comprising three high court chief justices had been consigned to trash bin. The chief justice took exception to certain commentaries and discourses made during television talk shows and said that it was being alleged that the court was raking up old cases by reviving the case of Hussain Haqqani.

“We are not scratching old wounds rather ensuring implementation of the rule of law,” the chief justice said, adding that he was seriously contemplating slapping a ban on commentaries in TV talk shows on sub judice or pending matters in the court.

Published in Dawn, March 29th, 2018