The Supreme Court has formulated a set of questions to determine whether former president retired General Pervez Musharraf, can be allowed to leave the country without modifying an earlier apex court verdict. On an appeal filed by the federal government, a five-member Supreme Court bench on June 23 had suspended the Sindh High Court (SHC) judgment of June 12 that ordered the deletion of Musharraf’s name from the Exit Control List (ECL).
The questions will be posed to the lead prosecutor and Musharraf’s defence team at the next hearing. The Supreme Court bench was headed by Justice Nasirul Mulk. The government filed the appeal on June 14 in a hurry and challenged the high court order on the apprehension that if retired Gen Musharraf was allowed to leave, he might never return to stand trial for treason, under Article 6 of the Constitution.
The government had also sought an order restraining Pervez Musharraf from proceeding abroad without the permission of the Supreme Court. Attorney General Salman Aslam Butt had argued that the government was following the Supreme Court’s orders, issued on April 8 last year which ordered that Musharraf’s name be placed on the ECL.
In a four-page order, the court said that it granted the government leave to appeal to consider whether the April 8 order was not an interim order because it had merged into the final order of July 3, 2013, or if it was an independent and final order asking for restriction on the former president’s travel abroad. -dawn
