Supreme Court rejects government’s request to form larger bench

The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected the request of Attorney General Irfan Qadir to form a larger bench in the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) implementation case.

A five-member bench of the apex court headed by Justice Asif Saeed Khosa started hearing the government’s petition against the court’s ruling given to Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf to write to the Swiss authorities to reopen graft cases against President Asif Ali Zardari.

The bench snubbed the request, saying that the hearing of the review petition does not have anything to do with the NRO implementation case.

The attorney general argued that the verdict of the apex court to strike down the contentious Contempt of Court Act 2012 and the government’s review petition in the NRO implementation case were interconnected.

A larger bench should be formed to hear both the cases, he added. In his view, composition of bench couldn’t be changed to hear review matters.

He also asked the bench to reschedule the hearing of the review petition after Eid, as the judge who was replaced in the bench will be available after the religious event. The court, however, rejected this request too.

Irfan Qadir while presenting his arguments before the bench said that a few actions don’t come under the domain of the prime minister and writing a letter to the Swiss authorities was one.

He was of the opinion that the court should not give directions to the premier which he cannot comply with. The Constitution did not give immunity to the prime minister but provided protection to the executive post, he added.

Earlier, Attorney General Ifran Qadir had filed the review appeal on behalf of the government.

The appeal, filed on Wednesday August 8, requested the court to review its order in which Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf had been directed to submit an implementation report with respect to writing the contentious letter to Swiss authorities.

The bench had issued notice to the Prime Minister under Section 17 of the Contempt of Court Ordinance 2003 read with Article 204 of the Constitution.

The bench directed him to appear in person on next date of hearing and explain as to why the contempt of court proceedings should not be initiated against him.

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Posted by Faisal Farooq on Aug 15 2012. Filed under Latest News, National, Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.