Supreme Court (SC) Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan reserved judgement in a petition filed by a female lawyer against Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. Per details, the SC judge reserved the final verdict in an appeal against objections by the SC Registrar’s Office on a constitutional petition, seeking a judicial order to stop the chief justice (CJ) of Pakistan from functioning until the disposal of the Arsalan Iftikhar-Malik Riaz case. Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan heard contentions of Afzala Qureshi in his chamber against an order of SC Lahore Registry deputy registrar on October 4. The petitioner pleaded that the Arslan case, in which the CJ’s son was allegedly involved in corruption worth millions of rupees, aroused questions on constitutional and legal provisions that were directly being raised against the CJ. She said the CJ might have vested interests in the case that could have prompted him to take suo motu action on it. The petitioner further pleaded that the CJ, while taking suo motu action on his son’s case, had dishonoured the dignity of the Supreme Court. The petitioner also pleaded that Arsalan’s case was a criminal matter between two persons and the Supreme Court being the apex court of the country should avoid the case. She requested that the impugned order of the deputy registrar be set aside and her constitutional petition be ordered for a regular hearing.
