MQM Chief Altaf Hussain has demanded on 3 January that retired Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and retired General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani should also be tried along with former President General Pervez Musharraf under Article 6 of the Constitution for committing high treason.
An almost identical call was made by former Prime Minister Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain on 6 January.
As a matter of record, Justice Chaudhry was the first and foremost victim of the emergency imposed by General Pervez Musharraf, on 3 November 2007, so calls for trying Justice Chaudhry for treason on this count are totally incomprehensible.
However, Justice Chaudhry’s trial is prima facie being demanded for his role as a judge of the apex court in validating the 12 October 1999 coup by General Musharraf through the infamous verdict on Zafar Ali Shah’s petition.
One would like to take pity on weakness and fragility of our national memory. All those persons — from any class or segment of society ranging from politics to media — who are hyping up calls for trying Justice Chaudhry under Article 6 for validating the first coup of General Musharraf perhaps do not remember the names of even five or even three other judges who sat on the 12-member bench headed by Chief Justice Irshad Hassan Khan that validated the military coup in Zafar Ali Shah case. Undoubtedly, this verdict is a blot on our constitutional jurisprudence and deserved to have been recalled or at least reviewed by now. However, that is a separate debate that why it escaped the notice of the most vigilant judiciary of all times.
One should not forget that Zafar Ali Shah case verdict was penned down by Chief Justice Irshad Hassan Khan — without any dissenting note contributed by 11 brother judges, including Milord Justice Chaudhry.
We will have to submit ourselves to the cardinal principle that nobody is above the law. If prime ministers and politicians can be tried for murder, hijacking, or other offences involving death penalty, judges and generals are no longer an exception. We will have to vociferously and emphatically pronounce that this country will not harbor any holy cow any longer.
Our frenzied calls for trying Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry run short of substance when we do not mention, or fail to recall, the name of the author of the Zafar Ali Shah case verdict or at least the names of a couple of other signatories – how revered they are, or may have been.
Justice Chaudhry’s name has become so familiar only because he – rightly or wrongly — used to stir up hornet’s nest until recently?
For a ready reference, following are the names of judges in order of seniority, who endorsed the 12 Oct 1999 coup and many of them are available to be tried along with Justice Chaudhry if we go by the calls made by Altaf Hussain and Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain:
Chief Justice Irshad Hasan Khan, Muhammad Bashir Jehangiri, Sh. Ijaz Nisar, Abdur Rehman Khan, Sh. Riaz Ahmed, Ch. Muhammad Arif, Munir A. Sheikh, Rashid Aziz Khan, Nazim Hussain Siddiqui, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhary, Qazi Muhammad Farooq, and Rana Bhagwan Das.
This effort has been made only with a view to set the historical record straight and it is not aimed at bringing someone into ridicule or disrespect by any means or by any stretch of imagination.
ASAD SIDDIQUI
Doha, Qatar
