A nine-member larger bench of Supreme Court led by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry heared the controversial memo case.
Chief Justice, in his remarks, said that Babar Awan conducted a press conference against court orders on December 1 in which he, along with other ministers, ridiculed the apex court. CJ said that the video of that press conference will be shown to all in the courtroom. Everyone used to speak against courts on television; the CJ asserted and vowed that nobody would be allowed to ridicule the court.
He said that the law minister also spoke against judiciary. He further said that Faisal Saleh Hayat, Marvi Mamon, Azam Swati and Khawaja Asif moved to court against government’s irregularities. The CJ asked the attorney general about whether the press conference was government’s opinion however, attorney general denied that the said conference was not federation’s view. The chief justice asked attorney general to submit this statement in writing and ordered to take action against responsible for the said press conference.
Justice Jawwad S Khawaja said that it the right of people to criticize judiciary as people pay for the salaries of judges and parliamentarians. Justice Jawwad also said that how the federal government had demanded to dismiss the application regarding memo, despite of the fact that allegations against Pakistani Ambassador in world’s highly important capital were came into light.
The chief justice said to attorney general that the president did not submit his reply so far. “It means, you know that, the president has accepted all the allegations leveled against him”, he said. The CJ ordered the attorney general to submit presidents reply today.The court sought copies of Hussain Haqqani’s resignation and notification of its acceptance. The court also ordered to present first notification for the establishment of Abbotabad commission. – Dawn
