Removing objections raised by the registrar’s office, the Supreme Court on Tuesday accepted for preliminary hearing a petition seeking direction to the government not to remove Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Gen Ashfaq Kayani and Director General Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Lt Gen Ahmad Shuja Pasha.
A three-member bench comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, Justice Khilji Arif Hussain and Justice Tariq Parvez directed its office to fix the petition before the court for regular hearing. The court directed Attorney General Maulvi Anwarul Haq to assist it whether the objections raised by the registrar office were legitimate or not and also take the government’s instructions whether it had any reservation on the petition. The attorney general, however, asked the court to examine the objections under the Supreme Court Rules. He said the federation would raise its objections, if any, over the maintainability of the petition at the appropriate time. He, however, did not object on fixation of the petition before the court for regular hearing. During the preliminary hearing against the registrar office’ objections on the petition, the chief justice noted that these objections could be heard in chamber, but the matter was fixed before the open court, keeping in view its importance. He said the court wanted to keep the public aware of its proceedings in the matter due to its importance.