Punjab government spokesman Senator Pervez Rashid on Friday rejected the contents of the latest cable released by WikiLeaks, saying the PML-N’s policy over the restoration of sacked judges was fully reflected in Nawaz Sharif’s meeting with the former US ambassador Anne W Patterson in Islamabad on January 31, 2009.
According to a fresh leak by international whistleblower WikiLeaks, Punjab Chief Minister Punjab Shahbaz Sharif had agreed to a temporary restoration of sacked Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry for the sake of face saving.
The WikiLeaks detailed a meeting between the then US consul general Brian De Hunt and Shahbaz Sharif. The meeting was held in March 2009 when the government of Shahbaz Sharif had been suspended, while Nawaz Sharif was all set to go on a long march for the restoration of judges the very next day.
The leak said Shahbaz had agreed that talks could be held on the issue if the chief justice were restored only symbolically. He said his party could not take the risk of backtracking from its stance on the chief justice’s restoration. Pervez Rashid said the meeting between Nawaz and Patterson had shown that Nawaz wanted all sacked judges’ reinstated and this stance was followed as a party policy.
This was also published in WikiLeaks Cables, Rashid said, adding that the same views were reflected in the cables sent by then US ambassador to the US government, therefore, cables of a higher authority carried more weight and authority than a lower rank officer. He said it was the PML-N leadership that made the reinstatement of sacked judges a precondition for joining the coalition government with the PPP and the demand was also part of the Murree Accord.
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