President’s dual offices case hearing adjourned till Dec 5

ISLAMABAD: The Lahore High Court (LHC) has adjourned the hearing of President Asif Ali Zardari’s dual offices contempt case till December 5 on the request of the government, Geo News reported Wednesday.

A five-member bench of the LHC headed by Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial resumed hearing of the dual offices case today where senior advocate Waseem Sajjad, who is representing the federation, requested the honourable judges to delay the proceedings as he was busy in the Supreme Court.

Accepting the request, the chief justice LHC adjourned the hearing till December 5 and remarked that there will be no delay after that as the case will be heard on daily basis.

He further stated that after the verdict of Asghar Khan case, the court will hear the arguments by the relevant parties regarding the immunity of the president under Article 248 after which the contempt proceedings will be initiated.

The Supreme Court in Asghar Khan’s case has declared that the president’s office comes under the Service of Pakistan therefore constitutionally it ought to be apolitical.

Moreover, not only Asghar Khan’s case, but the details of president’s recent visit to Malikwal and the record of the press releases of presidency have also been annexed with a fresh application filed in the LHC by Azhar Siddique Advocate Supreme Court.

Details show that the case of dual offices of president was filed in the LHC which was taken up by the court but the government, with Babar Awan being its key legal advisor then, did not pay heed to this important case and did not pursue it. Therefore, the court gave an ex-parte judgement against the president requesting him not to hold dual offices.

This judgement was not challenged therefore it attained finality and has been reported in PLD 2011 page 382. Then a petition was filed in the LHC for the implementation of its judgement which has now been turned into a contempt of court case against the president. When this case became hard to swallow for the president, the federation appointed Waseem Sajjad to represent it in the LHC, who has taken shelter behind the immunity clause to protect the president.

Waseen Sajjad had also moved an application in the court that he could not attend the case proceedings today. Azhar Siddique told that the contempt proceedings are suo-genus in nature therefore no one has immunity in it. He mentioned that two offences, contempt and high treason, have been mentioned in the Constitution because of their severity.