ISLAMABAD, April 9: The Supreme Court declined on Monday to grant right of audience to former president Pervez Musharraf in a petition seeking registration of a second FIR in the Benazir Bhutto assassination case, saying he was a fugitive of law.

A three-judge bench comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, Justice Khilji Arif Hussain and Justice Tariq Parvez which had taken up an appeal by Mohammad Aslam Chaudhry decided not to hear the point of view of the former president through his counsel after recalling that he had been declared proclaimed offender by an anti-terrorism court on June 11, 2011.

Aslam Chaudhry, who served as protocol officer for Ms Bhutto for 21 years, is a witness to the gun-and-bomb attack on her outside Liaquat Bagh in Rawalpindi on Dec 27, 2007.

The petitioner had challenged the rejection by the Lahore High Court of his plea for registration of the second FIR in the Benazir assassination case. He also sought criminal proceedings against Gen Musharraf and others for allegedly planning the assassination and executing the plan.

On March 5, the court had ordered pasting of summons on the residence of Gen Musharraf in Islamabad so that he might have intimation about the case.

On Monday, Gen (retd) Musharraf’s counsel Shaharyar informed the bench that he had no instructions from his client but his statement was with him which could he submitted right away.

But the chief justice said the court could not give him the right of audience because he was not accepting its authority and was a fugitive of law. The court asked the counsel not to file anything on behalf of the former president unless he received clear-cut instructions from his client.

Advocate Mohammad Azhar Chaudhry, representing the Federal Investigation Agency, said the former president should not be extended any facility unless he surrendered to the court.

The court held that under the authority of law the former president could not be given any right of audience, but noted that service of its earlier order had been done and notice was pasted at his residence.