ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) on Wednesday dispensed with the contempt of court appeals against the judges who had taken oath under the Provisional Constitution Order (PCO).
Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Mian Saqib Nisar, while hearing the appeal, said that the show-cause notices have been withdrawn; due to which contempt pleas are no longer effective against the PCO judges.
It is pertinent to mention here that the SC issued contempt of court notices to PCO judges, who filed intra-court appeals against the notices.
On January 12, the SC ended the contempt proceedings against judges who had taken oath under the Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO) in 2007.
The then-president General (r) Pervez Musharraf, after imposing a state of emergency and suspending the Constitution on November 3, 2007, had issued a PCO under which judges swore a new oath of allegiance.
CJP Mian Saqib Nisar, heading a four-member larger bench, gave the order while hearing the contempt case against 14 judges who had taken oath under the PCO.
During the hearing, the CJP remarked that the former Lahore High Court (LHC) chief justice Iftikhar Hussain Chaudhry has passed away and the entire matter is now around 11 years old.
The CJP explained that contempt matters are between the court and the respondents and since the judges are no longer serving, the contempt notices against them is being withdrawn.
After Musharraf’s PCO, the Supreme Court had declared the move illegal in a landmark judgment in July 2009 and later initiated contempt proceedings against the judges, some of whom later resigned and/or submitted apologies in court and were thus exempted from the case.
