ISLAMABAD, Dec 24: The Supreme Court on Monday overturned Lahore High Court’s order restraining the setting up of the Islamabad High Court, and allowed the federal government to go ahead with its plan, envisaged under the Provisional Constitution Order (PCO).

“The operation of the high court order is suspended,” a four-member Supreme Court bench comprising Chief Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar, Justice Muhammad Nawaz Abbasi, Justice M. Javed Buttar and Justice Chaudhry Ijaz Yusuf held after Attorney-General Malik Muhammad Qayyum described the high court order as amounting to nullifying the constitutional amendment, and said it smacked of personal vendetta.

The Supreme Court took up the federal government’s appeal, filed by the ministry of law, against the Dec 17 order of the LHC which restrained the federal government from setting up a federal high court in Islamabad under the Provisional Constitution Order No 1 of 2007.

Through an executive order on the eve of the lifting of emergency and restoration of the Constitution, President Pervez Musharraf had introduced six amendments to the Constitution, including the Islamabad High Court (Establishment) Order.

If established, the jurisdiction of the federal high court will encompass the Islamabad Capital Territory, with the same appellate jurisdiction as available to other high courts in the country.

Soon after the lifting of emergency, Lahore-based lawyer Hassan Nawaz Makhdoom had challenged the amendments to Articles 175, 193, 194 and 198 of the Constitution before the LHC, pleading that no amendment could be made in pursuance of the proclamation of emergency and the PCO.The amendment to set up the federal high court, the petition contended, amounted to changing the basic structure of the 1973 Constitution and infringed upon the structure of the judiciary.

Therefore, the petition said, these amendments were illegal, without jurisdiction, mala fide, in excess of powers of the then army chief and against judgments of the apex court rendered from time to time, affirming the independence of judiciary.

Acting on the petition, the high court restrained the federal government from taking any step to set up the high court with observations that the petitioner had raised complicated questions relating to the interpretation of several constitutional provisions.

The Lahore High Court had also summoned senior advocates S.M. Zafar, Waseem Sajjad, Khalid Ranjha, Mujeebur Rehman and Ahmar Bilal Soofi as amici curiae to assist it when it would resume the hearing on January 9, 2008.