Deposed CJ, other judges get salaries

Islamabad, Jun 18 (UNI) The Pakistan government has delivered paycheques for seven months to the deposed judges of the Supreme Court, including non-functional Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry.

''These salaries were paid under the Salaries Sanction Order, 2008,'' claimed Athar Minallah, a spokesman for Justice Chaudhry.

However, Law Ministry sources said the salary had been sanctioned from the Prime Minister's discretionary funds.

Law Minister Farooq H Naek recently informed the National Assembly that Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani had issued directives for the payment of salary to the deposed judges.

''Through an executive order, these judges have been made non-functional, from deposed, and now all that is required is another such order to make them functional,'' Dawn newspaper quoted Mr Minallah as saying.

He added that handing over of the payslips meant impliedly that the judges were no more deposed and stood reinstated.

He said if the judges were considered as deposed ones they would have received pension. They had not only been paid salary for seven months but also permissible allowances, which were given only to non-functional judges, he added.

The spokesman of Justice Chaudhry said the paycheques mentioned the word 'Justice' before the names of each of the judges, which negated the statement of President Pervez Musharraf that the judges who did not take the oath after emergency rule ceased to hold their respective offices.

Mr Musharraf as the army chief, had on November 3 sent home about 60 judges who declined to take fresh oath under the emergency rule and kept them under detention in their houses for almost 143 days.

UNI XC RJ AS1055