RAWALPINDI, Dec 18: Justice (retired) Jehangir Arshad, who refused to take oath under the Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO), said on Thursday that he would never appear before any judge who was sworn in under the PCO.

Speaking at a general body meeting of the District Bar Association (DBA) Rawalpindi, Justice Arshad said deposed Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry was still the constitutional chief justice.

“Those who do not accept Justice Iftikhar as CPJ should be tried under Article 6 of the Constitution,” he said. According to him, former president Pervez Musharraf imposed emergency and PCO in the country on November 3 last year with the collaboration of the then attorney general Malik Abdul Qayyum, Chief Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar and Sharifuddin Pirzada. Justice Arshad said that the lawyers’ movement would be remembered in that history as a ‘black coat revolution’. He said there would be no peace unless the judiciary was independent in the country.

DBA Rawalpindi President Sardar Tariq Masood, who presided over the session, paid tribute to Justice Arshad, and said in America everyone gave respect to Justice Chaudhry and addressed him as chief justice, but here the rulers were unwilling to accept this fact.

Mentioning the Iraq incident in which a journalist hurled shoes at US President George W. Bush in a press conference, he said those people, who were against the independence of judiciary, would have a fate like that of President Bush, former Sindh chief minister Arbab Ghulam Rahim and former federal minister of parliamentary affairs Dr Sher Afgan Niazi.

Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui, a senior lawyer, said the Rawalpindi bar had played a leading role in the lawyers’ movement. He said the deposed CJP had talked of justice and rule of law in the country, adding that Pakistan could be saved from disintegration only through rule of law and supremacy of the constitution.

High Court Bar Association (HCBA) President Sardar Asmatullah said there was a greater need for unity among the lawyers. He said the lawyers’ movement would continue.

Meanwhile, lawyers observed their routine weekly boycott of the court proceedings both at high and district courts.