The Supreme Court will take up on December 1 the constitutional petition of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President Nawaz Sharif and others seeking a probe into the memogate scandal. Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry constituted a nine-member special bench of the Supreme Court on Tuesday, which he will head, to hear the case on December 1. Notices have been issued to the counsels for the petitioners and the attorney general.
The petitions were filed by the Watan Party, lawyer M Tariq Asad, Nawaz Sharif and PML-N Senator Ishaq Dar. On Tuesday, the PML-N chief also filed an application in the Supreme Court seeking an early hearing of his petition in the best interest of the nation. He stated that since having filed the petition, the territorial integrity/sovereignty of Pakistan had yet again been blatantly violated a few days ago resulting in the unwarranted killing of 26 “very valuable and valiant soldiers of our motherland”. “What is more agonising are the mere hollow statements issued by those at the helm of affairs,” the PML chief stated. In his petition, filed under Article 184(3) of the constitution, Sharif requested the court to summon the respondents, President Asif Ali Zardari, former ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani, Pakistani-American businessman Mansoor Ijaz, Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, Inter-Services Intelligence chief Lt General Ahmad Shuja Pasha and the foreign secretary in person to explain the matter of the memo allegedly written to the US government. “All the respondents be summoned in person to explain the detestable, the despicable and the treacherous memorandum in question,” he stated.
