ISLAMABAD, May 25: Pakistan People’s Party co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari has agreed to a proposal put forward by the Pakistan Muslim League-N to increase the tenure of the chief justice of Pakistan to five years in his party’s constitution amendment package.

According to PTV, Mr Zardari assured PML-N leader Ishaq Dar during a meeting here on Sunday that the tenure would be increased to five years from the proposed three.

Mr Dar had called on Mr Zardari to discuss the draft of the constitution amendment bill and the federal budget, PPP sources said.

The sources said Mr Zardari assured the PML-N leader that all deposed judges, including Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, would be reinstated.

The sources said an agreement between the PPP and PML-N on the chief justices’ tenure could pave way for resolving an issue which had the potential of triggering a serious political crisis.

PML-N spokesman Siddiqul Farooq praised Mr Zardari’s decision and expressed the hope that it would end bitterness between the coalition partners over non-implementation of the Murree Declaration.

He said Mr Zardari’s gesture should be followed by concrete action in the light of promises made in the declaration.

Commenting on Mr Zardari’s announcement that the bill would be tabled in parliament in June and approved in July, the PML-N spokesman said it would not be sagacious to prolong the issue of reinstatement of the judges.

“I think the issue can be decided in six days by both the houses of parliament. Otherwise, it will provide ample time to conspirators to disrupt the democratic process started after the Feb 18 elections,” he added.

The TV channel quoted Mr Zardari as saying that Mr Dar had done a lot of work on the budget before resigning as the finance minister and he was helping the government in this regard.