ISLAMABAD: A nine-member bench of the Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry Friday declared petitions in the "memo" case maintainable after hearing arguments from both sides in length.
The bench also announced a three-member Commission headed by Chief Justice Balochistan High Court, Justice Qazi Faiz Isa and comprising Chief Justice Sindh High Court, Justice Masheer Alam and Chief Justice Islamabad High Court, Justice Iqbal Hameedur Rehman. District and Session Judge Jawad Abbas has been announced as Secretary of the Commission.
The Commission has been directed to complete its investigation within a period of four weeks.
In its short order passed by the bench comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, Justice Mian Shakirullah Jan, Justice Tassaduq Hussain Jillani, Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja, Justice Tariq Pervez, Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan, Justice Ijaz Ahmed Chaudhry and Justice Muhammad Athar Saeed decided that petitions were maintainable.
These petitions were filed by former Prime Minister Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif, Parliamentary leader of PML (N) in the Senate Ishaq Dar, Member National Assembly PML (N) and former Governor Balochistan Abdul Qadir Baloch, Dr. Tariq Asad and Barrister Zafarullah Khan besides others.
Counsel of Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif, Rashid A Rizvi exercised his right of reply to arguments of Asma Jehangir and presented references of various judgments in favour of maintainability of petitions under Article 184 (3) of the Constitution.
Petitioner Ishaq Dar appeared before the court in person and adopted arguments of Rashid A Rizvi.
Asma Jehangir completed arguments on Thursday and said these petitions were vague and based on hypothesis and presented several judgments related to non maintainability of such petitions. "Petitioner is supposed to tell the court as which fundamental rights have been affected."
The Federation, President, Chief of the Army Staff (COAS), Director General Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and many others including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were made respondents in petitions.
Earlier, the bench had reserved the order about maintainability of the petitions and said it was to be announced at 1500 hours. However, the short order came at 1550 hours.
Counsels of petitioners and respondents besides petitioners Ishaq Dar, Barrister Zafarullah and Dr. Tariq Asad and a large number of PML (N) leaders including Members of the National Assembly Sardar Mehtab Abbasi and Ayaz Amir were also present in the court room when the order was announced.
Copyright APP (Associated Press of Pakistan), 2011
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