CJ goes public with what happened, says Musharraf got physical with him

The suspended Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan has alleged that he was detained at the Rawalpindi camp office of President General Musharraf on March 9 for six hours after his refusal to resign under pressure.

The 40-page constitutional petition drafted by senior counsel Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan on behalf of the suspended chief justice was filed with the Supreme Court on March 24, challenging the presidential orders to suspend Justice Iftikhar.

“The Chief Justice of Pakistan was physically restrained to prevent him from leaving the President’s Camp Office in Rawalpindi from 11:00 am till 5: 00 pm on March 9 — the day he was suspended by President General Musharraf and a disqualification reference filed before the Supreme Judicial Council.

When it became evident that he could not be persuaded to resign, then by an order of the same date, the referring authority (the president) purportedly restrained the petition from performing the functions of judge of the Supreme Court and Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP). The officials of the referring authority thereupon also placed physical restraints on the petitioner preventing him from leaving his office till 5pm”, says the petition whose contents have been made public for the first time.

The chief justice says in his constitutional petition that dressed in his military uniform, Musharraf summoned him to his office in Rawalpindi and referred to baseless charges. “In the presence of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and others whose names will be disclosed at an appropriate stage through an affidavit, I was given an option and indeed fervently persuaded to resign from the office of the Chief Justice of Pakistan. The president was most upset when I refused to resign”, he says.

Referring to the presidential disqualification reference filed against him, Chaudhry alleges that “it was an attempt by General Musharraf to humble, humiliate, subjugate and thus render the most crucial judicial organ of the state completely subservient, especially at a time when the organ was just beginning to assert its constitutional authority by giving relief to the common man”.

The country’s suspended top judge further says the prime minister, on whose advice the reference was filed, was himself found, in a judgment authored by the petitioner, to have been engaged in some serious omissions and commissions.

“How can a reference that has been filed on the advice of such a prime minister to seek removal of the author of that judgment be seen otherwise than mala fide? The entire edifice of the independence of the judiciary would crumble like a house of cards, if contrary view is taken, as any judge about to deliver a judgment against the executive, will run the jeopardy of being effectively and summarily sent home”, states the suspended chief justice.