Illegal order not worthy of being obeyed: SC

The Supreme Court on Thursday issued the detailed verdict in the Asghar Khan case, saying any illegal order was not worthy of being obeyed.
Although the president being the supreme commander of the armed forces could issue directions to the armed forces or civilians to make efforts for achieving desired results, any such illegal order transmitted was not worthy of being obeyed.
The 141-page verdict is written by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. Registrar Supreme Court Dr Faqeer Hussain read out the detailed verdict of the case in a press conference.
The verdict said the SC had stated that the elections of 1990 were rigged and then president Ghulam Ishaq Khan, former army chief Gen (r) Aslam Beg and then ISI director general Asad Durrani exercised their powers illegally. It said the president was the head of state and it did not suit him to support any group, and creating a political cell in the Presidency was illegal.
“Learned attorney general stated that no state functionary, be he president who is the supreme commander of the armed forces of Pakistan, or the prime minister, who is the chief executive of the country, or the federal ministers, or anyone else is empowered to give illegal orders. Nobody can violate the constitution, nobody can rig the elections. Such a duty is not upon anybody in Pakistan, therefore, the president of Pakistan cannot be isolated in this respect, inasmuch as oath of his office is no different to the other oaths prescribed in the constitution,” it added.
The verdict stated that Younis Habib had confessed to distributing Rs 40 million. “The secret agencies have no right to make an election cell and the ISI and MI are duty bound to safeguard the borders,” it added.
The verdict said the elections should be held on time without any fear.
The SC also ordered in the detailed verdict that notices be served to the attorney general, IB DG IB, publishers, printers and reporters of the English daily newspaper on the story complaining that an amount of Rs 270 million were doled out of IB accounts for the purpose of toppling the government of Punjab in 2008-09. The SC ordered that the news item may be registered as CMA and after de-linking the same from instant case, be fixed in court, with notice to the publishers, printers and reporters of the said newspapers as well as the IB DG and the attorney general for a date after two weeks. The affidavit submitted by Lt Gen (r) Asad Durrani is also made part of the verdict in which names of the recipient of money are given.