Interior Secretary Khawaja Siddique Akbar has challenged the maintainability of the constitutional petition filed by PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif and others seeking probe into the memo issue, saying the said matter prima facie was not a proper subject matter of proceedings within the meaning and scope of Article 184. According to the affidavit submitted on Thursday, the secretary, while challenging the maintainability of the petition, said the parliamentary committee on national security has had taken cognisance and was seized of the matter.
The secretary also mentioned in the affidavit the article published in Independent on December 13, 2011 saying that “With reference to the same source (Mr Mansoor Ijaz, Respondent), the daily Independent, UK on December 13, 2011 carried a story titled, “Pakistan’s Memogate”: was there ever going to be a coup?” He also attached a copy of the article with the affidavit. He further stated that the federal government, as well as the presidency had already issued denial of the contents of the article written by Mansoor Ijaz. Presenting the stance of the federation, he said the federal government (including the constitutional head of the state, the constitutional chief executive of the country or any other component of the federal government) had neither conceptualized nor initiated or in any manner had anything to do with the alleged memo or the allegations or views expressed in the article. He further stated that without prejudice to the foregoing submission, the competent authorities have already taken appropriate steps both on the executive side as well as the parliamentary forum. Referring to the cognizance taken by the parliamentary committee of the issue, the secretary said all the committees of parliament were a creation of the rules framed under the Constitution of Islamic Republic of Pakistan, 1973. He submitted all democratically elected political parties were represented in the said committee and it was, therefore, essential that the said committee should proceed with the probe to determine the issue and give its recommendations so that parliament, which had supremacy under the constitution as a representative body of the people of Pakistan, may consider and take appropriate actions and steps, if need be.
