Lahore – Lahore High Court (LHC) Chief Justice (CJ) Ijaz Ahmed Chaudhry on Friday constituted a larger bench to hear a petition challenging presidential pardon to Interior Minister Senator Rehman Malik by President Asif Ali Zardari. Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed would head the larger bench while next hearing of the petition would be fixed by the court office. Earlier, the petition was being heard by a three-member full bench.
Save Judiciary Committee Media Advisor Imtiaz Rashid Qureshi filed the petition submitting that the president misused his powers under Article 45 of the constitution to pardon Malik. The petitioner’s counsel submitted that the LHC had restored the three-year sentence awarded to the interior minister by an accountability court but Malik instead of filing an appeal against it in the Supreme Court (SC), which could have provided him relief, directly approached Zardari for ensuring a presidential pardon. He said that the president pardoned the minister by exercising his powers, which he could not until the SC upheld the LHC judgment.
