LAHORE, Sept 10: The Pakistan Lawyers Forum (PLF) on Tuesday filed a contempt of court plea against President Gen Pervez Musharraf in the Lahore High Court.

PLF’s A. K. Dogar submitted in his petition that President Gen Pervez Musharraf had been allowed three years from October 12, 1999, for holding general election and transferring power to civilians in the Zafar Ali Shah and Waseem Sajjad cases. He pointed out that the validity accorded to the present government by the Supreme Court was conditional to a complete transfer of power to civilians within three years.

According to the petitioner, the military regime became invalid and illegal on Aug 17 this year when it fixed Nov 12 as the date for holding election of the Senate. Thus the transfer of power to civilians would not have been completed by Oct 12, the petition suggested.

The timeframe was mentioned at six places in the judgments in the Zafar Ali Shah and Waseem Sajjad Cases. The learned judges emphasised again and again that the timeframe of three years must be followed by the general under all circumstances. They asked Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada to get instructions from the federal government regarding the timeframe and were assured that power would indeed be transferred to civilians within three years.

He submitted that the condition of transferring power to civilians within three years was unambiguous and left no scope for any interpretation other than that the military regime would lose the validation granted to it if it did not hand over power to civilians within the timeframe of three years.

He submitted that the timeframe specified by the Supreme Court had been violated by the government “blatantly, deliberately and with the malafide intention of remaining in power as long as possible”. The disobedience of court order was the worst kind of contempt, he added.

Mr Dogar also amended his petition challenging the validity of Legal Framework Order, praying to the court to direct Gen Pervez Musharraf to hand over reins of the government to non-controversial persons acceptable to all political parties. He should also be tried under Article 6 of the Constitution for subverting it, the petitioner maintained.

The amended petition would come up for hearing in the court of Justice Ijaz Buttar on Wednesday.