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Supreme Court of Pakistan. — Photo by AFP

ISLAMABAD: The Shoaib Suddle Commission submitted an interim report to the court pertaining to the Arsalan Iftikhar case and requested for an additional 30 days here on Monday, DawnNews reported.

The Supreme Court on Monday issued notices to Dr Arsalan Iftikhar and his counsel to appear on Tuesday after counsel for Malik Riaz, a property tycoon, refused to appear before one-man commission mandated by the Court to probe alleged millions monetary gains by Arsalan Iftikhar.

A two-Judge bench comprising Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja and Justice Khilji Arif Hussain issued notices after Zahid Bukhari, counsel for Malik Riaz, contended that they would not appear before the apex Court mandated one-man commission of Dr Shoaib Suddle till disposal of their review petition by the bench.

The bench deferred further proceedings till Tuesday after issuance of notices.

Earlier, the Supreme Court (SC) had replaced a National Accountability Bureau (NAB) team investigating the Arsalan Iftikhar case and appointed Shoaib Suddle as the one-man commission to investigate the case.

Suddle was appointed as the one-man commission by the apex court after granting an review appeal filed by Arsalan Iftikhar, son of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. The granting of the appeal overturned the SC’s own earlier ruling.

This was followed by another appeal filed by Malik Riaz who was also embroiled in a legal battle with Arsalan Iftikhar, accusing each other of financial wrongdoing.

Riaz requested a review of a ruling which had already come under review on a petition earlier moved by his adversary, Arsalan Iftikhar.

Riaz’s petition contended that the court could also not delegate its power to the commission which performed only ministerial function, the extent and scope of which was limited, narrow and clearly defined in the Supreme Court Rules.

The court had appointed the commission without finding any illegality in its earlier order of giving direction to the attorney general. Instead the court decided to change the investigation and appoint an investigator on a review petition which amounted to changing the law of review, the petition said.

The apex court rejected the plea to stop the Riaz-Arsalan case probe and maintained that Shoaib Suddle will continue to investigate the case.

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