A petition was filed in the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Wednesday to restrain President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani from removing Chief of Army Staff General (COAS) Ashfaq Parvez Kiyani and Director General Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) Lt General Ahmad Shuja Pasha from their posts. Petitioner Maulvi Iqbal Haider also requested the court to declare the president and the prime minister disqualified for defying Supreme Court’s orders and not cooperating with the judicial commission probing the memogate scandal.
Included as respondents in the petition are the president, the prime minister, the COAS, the DG ISI, the National Accountability Bureau chairman, secretaries of the Cabinet Division, the Establishment Division, the ministries of Law and Defence, former ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani and American businessman Mansoor Ijaz. The petitioner argued that the president in his recent interview to a TV channel categorically denied to accept the findings of the apex court or the judicial commission on the memo case, whereas the prime minister’s speech in parliament on December 22 was a violation of articles 2A, 5, 9, 25, 62, 63, 189, 190 and 204 of the constitution and the oath taken by both of them. The petitioner asked the court to order the government to provide security to Mansoor Ijaz upon his arrival in Pakistan. It also asked the court to restrain the government from implicating Ijaz in any false case at his arrival. He pleaded that the COAS and the DG ISI should be given directions to not hand over Ijaz to any law enforcement agency during his stay in Pakistan. The petitioner also requested the court to direct the respondents to implement the apex court’s verdict on the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) case.