The government has formally approached Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry with a request to nominate a Supreme Court judge to head the Abbottabad incident inquiry commission.
According to a senior official of the Law Ministry, the letter to nominate a Supreme Court judge to head the inquiry commission was sent to the CJP by Law Secretary Masood Chishti on Saturday. Supreme Court Registrar Dr Faqir Hussain told Pakistan Today that he had received the letter, which would be handed to the CJP today (Monday). He said it was the sole discretion of the CJP to nominate any judge of the Supreme Court to head the inquiry commission.
To a query about the status of the inquiry commission constituted earlier by the government, headed by apex court judge Justice Javed Iqbal without the CJP’s approval, the registrar said the government would know better about and no notification was issued to appoint Justice Iqbal head of that commission. On May 31, the federal government had formed a five-member commission to investigate the events surrounding intelligence lapses vis-à-vis al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden’s killing.
The primary purpose behind the formation of the commission under a serving Supreme Court judge was to dispel doubts about the objectivity of the investigation, but the CJP was not consulted before nominating Justice Javed Iqbal to head the commission. According to sources, on May 4, Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani had told a meeting of the corps commanders that a probe into the incident at the army level was already underway and its findings might also be accessed by the commission.
CJP requested for Supreme Court judge to head commission
