KARACHI, March 26 The Sindh High Court issued on Thursday preadmission notices for April 14 in a petition seeking treason trial of former president Gen (retired) Pervez Musharraf and all others who aided and abetted him in proclaiming emergency on Nov 3, 2007, in violation of the Constitution and a Supreme Court injunction passed by a seven-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry.

The petition, moved by Advocate Maulvi Iqbal Haider, chairman of the Awami Himayat Tehrik, through Advocate Amin Memon, cited as respondents the federation through its law secretary, the interior secretary, the province of Sindh, Gen (retd) Musharraf, ex-legal adviser Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada, former attorney-general Malik Mohammad Qayyum and the Islamabad High Court registrar.

It came up before a division bench comprising Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali and Justice Karim Khan Agha.

The petitioner said the army chief had no authority under the Constitution or any other law to proclaim an emergency and issue a provisional constitution order, that too, in violation of a Supreme Court order.

The emergency was declared only to subjugate the judiciary, as the government machinery was functioning normally on Nov 3, 2007. Sixty of the superior court judges declined to take oath under the new PCO and ceased to be judges.

The petition requests the court that the PCO and Oath of Office (Judges) Order of Nov 3, 2007, should be declared void along with the SC order of Nov 6, 2007, setting aside the Nov 3 order and the subsequent SC judgment in the Tikka Iqbal case upholding the imposition of emergency.

The notification of March 17, 2009, restoring Chief Justice Chaudhry should be given an overriding effect except for its clause dealing with the retirement of Justice Abdul Hamid Dogar as the chief justice of Pakistan.

The petition also seeks nullification of the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution based on Gen (retd) Musharraf's legal framework order and the Revival of Constitution Order inserted in 1985 by the then president, Gen Ziaul Haq, as the Eighth Amendment, so that the 1973 Constitution could be restored to its original shape.

The Islamabad High Court being a creation of the PCO of Nov 3, 2007, should be wound up and all those responsible for subverting the Constitution should be tried for treason, it says.