SC accepts plea against removal of army, ISI chiefs
08 February, 2012
ISLAMABAD: Rejecting the objections, raised by the Registrar's Office, the Supreme Court on Tuesday accepted a petition for preliminary hearing, seeking to stop the federal government from removing Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Director General Lt Gen Ahmad Shuja Pasha. A three-member bench comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, Justice Khilji Arif Hussain and Justice Tariq Parvez heard an appeal against the order of the court's Registrar's Office, which had raised objections on the petition filed by FK Butt on the matter. The court has directed its office to fix the petition before the court for regular hearing. During the hearing, the court asked Attorney General Maulvi Anwarul Haq to assist it whether the objections raised by the Registrar's Office were legitimate or not and also take the government's instructions whether it had any reservation on the petition. The attorney general, however, asked the court to examine the objections under the Supreme Court Rules. He said that the federation would raise its objections, if any, over the maintainability of the petition at an appropriate time. He did not object to the fixation of the petition before the court for a regular hearing. The chief justice noted that the objections could be heard in-chamber, but the matter was fixed before the open court, keeping in view its importance. He said that the court wanted to keep the public aware of its proceedings in the matter due to its importance. Earlier on January 20, the attorney general had told the court that the government had no intention to remove the COAS and the ISI director general and they would serve their tenures. The court, however, had directed the attorney general to present the government's stance in writing within two weeks that it had no any intention to sack Gen Kayani and Gen Pasha. The attorney general had contended that the petition against any possible move to sack the military and intelligence leadership was based on assumptions and hypothesis. End.
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