HYDERABAD, March 20: Senior lawyer and member of the Pakistan Bar Council Mohammad Yousuf Leghari cautioned on Tuesday that whichever state organ was defeated in the ongoing tussle between the executive and the judiciary the ultimate sufferer would be the country.

Mr Leghari said while speaking at the "Point of View" programme organised by the press club that Gen Pervez Musharraf should show restraint and admit he has committed mistakes in handling the CJP issue. The gesture would add to his stature, he said.

He recalled that police had once arrested a district and sessions judge of Sanghar but prime minister late Z. A. Bhutto’s had himself tendered an apology to the nation for the police action.

Mr Leghari termed the action against chief justice as absolutely illegal and unconstitutional and said that there was no provision in the constitution which allowed the chief justice to be made "non-functional".

Under the constitution the president could file a reference in the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) if a judge of superior judiciary was found mentally on physically incapacitated, he said.

He stressed that no judge of superior judiciary could be made non-functional. Only SJC could decide the fate of a judge but in the case of CJP, he was suspended first and then a reference was filed, which was a flagrant violation of the constitution.

He said that the judiciary was the protector of fundamental human rights. If the CJP had summoned the agencies men to court in the cases of missing people he was acting within the parameters of constitution, he said.

Mr Leghari stressed that the PBC had adopted a resolution, which clearly stated that the lawyers would not seek any help or cooperation from the political parties in their struggle to uphold the supremacy of judiciary and constitution.

The political parties who joined the lawyers protest had acted on their own and not at the request of PBC. The council had not invited any political leader to attend the lawyers’ convention at Lahore High Court, he said.

He slammed police attack on TV channel and newspaper offices and announced that the lawyers would observe strike on Wednesday to express solidarity with the press and appealed to Khalid Ranjha not to represent the government before the SJC.

He wondered when the chief justice of Sindh High Court could be taken to Islamabad in a special plane what kept the government from sending a special plane to bring back the most senior judge of the Supreme Court Rana Bhagwandas.