LAHORE, Sept 15: The Lahore High Court on Monday ruled that the 1973 Constitution had barred the high courts from hearing petitions challenging the deeds of the army.

Such petitions could be dismissed even by the high court offices, Justice Raja Muhammad Sabir ruled while disallowing the petition of Pakistan Lawyers Forum.

The PLF had challenged LHC office’s rejection of its petition seeking a judicial inquiry against Gen Pervez Musharraf and other army officers on charges of misusing public funds and receiving kickbacks in defence deals.

The office had refused to mark the petition for regular hearing after declaring it unfit on technical grounds, saying the LHC did not have the authority to question the actions of the army officers, including that of Gen Musharraf.

The court observed that Article 199 (3) had left no room for a high court to take up such matters and the objection raised by the office was perfectly in accordance with the constitution.

Justice Sabir further disagreed to PLF president A. K. Dogar’s interpretation of a Supreme Court judgment delivered in Lt-Gen Anwar Aziz’s case in which, according to him, the SC had held that the high court could take up matters against the army officers within its constitutional jurisdiction.

“The court could hear such cases only in those instances where an armyman had issued any order with mala fide intentions or beyond his jurisdiction,” the court interpreted the SC’s judgment referred to by the petitioner in support of his plea.

“No order of Gen Musharraf and the other respondents has been challenged in this petition and this flaw renders the petition to be dismissed,” the court ruled.

It also pointed out that LHC Chief Justice Iftikhar Husain Chaudhry had also upheld the same objection of the office raised on the maintainability of PLF’s petition seeking Gen Musharraf’s trial on high treason charges. The court quoted the CJ as having observed that the LHC deputy registrar was competent not only to raise such objection but also to return the petition for the removal of the technical objection, if possible.

The LHC had been pleaded through the main petition to appoint a commission comprising Supreme Court judges with unimpeachable character, the opposition leader along with the Pakistan Bar Council president and secretary general to initiate the investigations against all the army generals coming to the power between 1958 and 1999 on the charges of plundering money and to subsequently recover that money from those found guilty.

The court had been further requested that during the pendency of this petition Gen Pervez Musharraf, Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee chairman Gen Aziz, Punjab governor Khalid Maqbool, former interior minister Moinuddin Haider, Lt-Gen Muzaffar Usmani (retired) and Lt-Gen Muhammad Afzal Janjua (retired) be restrained from alienating their assets till the completion of a judicial probe.

About 111 army officers had allegedly got 400 plots in Bahawalpur and Rahim Yar Khan districts at throwaway price of Rs47.50 per kanal against the actual price of Rs15,000 to Rs20,000 per kanal while another 35,000 kanals were distributed among them.

According to the petitioner’s claim, all the six respondents got 400 kanals each at different places in the Punjab while NAB’s former chairman Lt-Gen Muhammad Amjad was allegedly allotted a two-kanal plot on Sarwar Road, Lahore Cantt, for just Rs800,000 payable in 20-year instalments. The market value of this plot was Rs20 million.

According to Mr Dogar, Gen Musharraf had acquired a commercial plot worth Rs20 million in Defence Housing Authority, Lahore, for just Rs100,000 to be payable in 20 years. The petitioner had cited the report of the defence services director-general, according to which Rs5 billion loss had been incurred to the exchequer through such allotment of land to army generals.

Former Air Chief Abbas Khattak had allegedly received Rs180 million kickbacks in the purchase of 40 old Mirage planes while another Air Chief Feroze Khan was suspected of receiving five per cent commission on purchase of 40 F-7 aircraft worth $271 million.