Pak govt moves SC for constitution of full court

Islamabad, May 3: Pakistan government has requested the Supreme Court to expand the five-member bench hearing identical petitions, including that of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, into a full court.

The request was made on behalf of Sharifuddin Pirzada, representing President Gen Pervez Musharraf late yesterday.

Mr Pirzada said, in the application to the Supreme Court, the five-member bench was open to question on various grounds because it comprised four junior judges and an ad hoc one whose appointment had been challenged in the apex court, the Dawn newspaper reported .

The government had earlier opposed the idea when on April 27 the chief justice had requested formation of a full court comprising all judges of the Supreme Court.

The government had then argued that fixing of a matter for a particular date and constitution of a bench to hear a particular case was the prerogative of the chief justice and no party to the case had any right to ask for the same.

The five-member bench had been formed by Acting Chief Justice Rana Bhagwandas on Saturday last to take up from May 7 a number of petitions, including one by Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry against the formation of the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) and challenging the President's move to file a reference against him.

The government pleaded that Justice M Javed Buttar, who is to head the larger bench is junior to five judges, adding that exclusion of the five senior judges - Khalilur Rehman Ramday, Mohammad Nawaz Abbasi, Faqir Mohammad Khokhar, Falak Sher and Mian Shakirullah Jan- from the bench was inexplicable.

It said the referring authority or the President in the chief justice's petition had a legitimate expectation that the acting chief justice would fix the matter for hearing before a full court following the precedent in the 1998 Asad Ali case.

The government would not have filed the application if the acting chief justice had constituted a bench comprising senior-most judges of the court to hear the matter, the application said.

President Musharraf had sacked Justice Chaudhry on March 9 and sent a reference against him in the SJC for misusing his powers.

Justice Chaudhry, who denies the charges, took his case to the Supreme Court, which he once headed.

Meanwhile, Justice Chaudhry attended the eighth meeting of the SJC today amid protests by opposition parties.

Lawyers, who represented different bar associations of the country, scuffled with police when they were disallowed to go inside the Supreme Court building.

''We concluded our arguments today on suspension of the chief justice and constitution of the SJC,'' Aitzaz Ahsan, a senior lawyer representing the Chief Justice told reporters.

Justice Chaudhry's team maintained throughout that he could not be tried in the council and appointment of the Acting Chief Justice was also ''illegal''.

Government lawyers began their arguments thereafter. But the Council rose to meet again on May 9-10.

UNI