‘Is govt heading for a head-on collision with SC?’

Ahmad Noorani
ISLAMABAD: ‘Money is not everything’ Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry tells the Pakistan’s media houses Wednesday during the NICL corruption scam hearing saying while running an advertisement vilifying the superior judiciary on a sub judice case, the media shouldn’t ignore the interest.

The Chief Justice and his two judges Justice Khilji Arif Hussain and Justice Amir Hani Muslim were astonished and extremely annoyed on the blatant defiance shown by the PPP government by throwing the orders of the apex court into the dustbin.

“With the grace of Almighty Allah we have Article 190 of the Constitution and can pass any order but we want to do the same through the system so that it could be improved,” the chief justice observed adding: “Attorney General Sahib please tell the government that we are not afraid and we do not have any problem.

If they will not obey our orders we have all constitutional powers to suggest remedies and rectify all wrongs.” The chief justice said that the court would go to any limit to defend an honest officer. He said the court in its July 7, 2011 order had passed a restraining order on all actions taken against FIA additional director general Zafar Qureshi.

The Supreme Court in its Wednesday’s order again wrote in categorical terms: “All such notices and/ or communications issued to Zafar Qureshi till date are suspended.” This simply means that the order of suspension of Zafar Qureshi has no effect.

When Attorney General Maulvi Anwar-ul-Haq was asked by this correspondent why after the apex court’s restraining order against the suspension of Zafar Qureshi he is not being allowed to start investigations into the NICL corruption scam, he replied: “The government is neither taking any action against Zafar Qureshi nor is stopping him to start the probe of this case. He himself is not starting his work.”

Maulvi Anwar-ul-Haq further added that he has given a written statement to the court that the government will not take any action against Zafar Qureshi and the apex court has mentioned his statement in its July 7, 2011 order.

“I don’t know why Zafar Qureshi has not started his work,” said the attorney general during his exclusive talk with The News. On the other hand, sources close to Qureshi told The News that Qureshi’s suspension was notified by the Establishment Division and after the SC nullified his suspension another notification terminating Qureshi’s suspension is mandatory under service rules and regulation so that he could rejoin his job and resume the investigations of different cases relating to the NICL scam. But till late Wednesday night the Establishment Division had issued no such notification. Sohail Ahmad, secretary establishment told The News: “As the issue of NICL is sub judice in the Supreme Court so I will not give any comments on this to a journalist.”

He, however, did not clarify whether he will make a statement before the SC on Thursday. It is worth mentioning here that Zafar Qureshi is a Grade-21 officer and his suspension orders or orders to cancel the suspension could only be issued by the prime minister through the Establishment Division.

When the NICL case resumes on Thursday the government is supposed to present the notification of cancellation of Zafar Qureshi’s suspension. Top Establishment Division sources confirmed to The News that neither any such development has taken place till 10:00 pm nor it was expected later in the night. If this order is not produced in the SC, the government could be heading for a head-on collision with the Supreme Court.

Sources also told The News that the government had done nothing with respect to the Supreme Court’s orders to present it a report about newspaper reports that there was political intervention into the NICL scam investigations.

So, it is possible that following up on its July 7 and July 13 decisions, the apex court might constitute a judicial commission on Thursday to be headed by a sitting high court judge to probe the political intervention aspect of the NICL corruption scam.

While Khushnood Lashari, principal secretary to the prime minister, was not ready to speak to The News because of a PPP government’s Wednesday notification ordering government officials not to speak to the media as it was creating great embarrassment for the rulers, the press secretary to the prime minister also followed the same guidelines. But later Wednesday night the PM’s secretary gave the following official comment: “Whatever was the version of Secretary Establishment is the version of the Prime Minister’s Secretariat.”