By Muhammad Najeeb, IANS
Islamabad : President Pervez Musharraf, facing tough opposition to his re-election for another five years, has extended a “hand of friendship” to Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, who was reinstated in August by the Supreme Court after four months of suspension.
On Friday, Musharraf sent his chief of staff, Lt. Gen. (retired) Hamid Javed, to meet the chief justice at his chamber in the Supreme Court, a report by television channel AAJ said Saturday.
Other private TV news channels also reported on the 30-minute meeting. Later AAJ quoted Supreme Court registrar Faqir Hussain confirming the meeting.
He said the chief justice had asked for appointment of high court judges in all four high courts in the country as hundreds of thousands of cases were pending.
“Nothing else was discussed during the meeting. It was one-point agenda to discuss the pending cases in the high courts, and the meeting was called by the chief justice,” the registrar was quoted as saying.
When contacted, a spokesman for the president’s office said there was “nothing to add” to the statement made by the registrar.
However, analysts see it as a move by the president to “befriend” the chief justice who has been giving tough time to the government by his decisions.
“Let’s see what the presidency and the chief justice have to say about the meeting but for the time being it’s seen as a hand of friendship,” said political analyst Nasim Zehra.
The supreme court last month allowed former prime minister Nawaz Sharif to come back to the country, ordered immediate production of the missing peoples and was also hearing a case against Musharraf’s re-election from parliament as president for another five years as well as a number of cases against Musharraf for keeping two posts – presidency and chief of the army staff.
The very day Javed met the chief justice, the Supreme Court clubbed six petitions filed by different political parties against re-election and dual office by Musharraf.
Chief Justice Chaudhry, pulling himself out, constituted a larger, nine-member bench of senior judges of the court, to be headed by Justice Rana Bhagwandas, to hear these petitions from Monday.
Earlier, the chief justice headed a seven-member bench.
According to political and legal experts, while the government did not raise any objection to the hearing of these petitions by the chief justice, he decided not to preside over this bench so that no question of his personal bias against the president could be raised.
In their petitions, Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) president Qazi Hussain Ahmad and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan have contended that holding of the offices of president and chief of the army staff by the same person is in gross violation of the constitution and that Musharraf is not eligible to contest the coming presidential election.
The government says that Musharraf’s term as president expires Nov 15, 2007 and he would continue to hold office until his successor enters upon the office.
The Election Commission is expected to announce the schedule of election of the president in a couple of days.
While admitting the petitions for regular hearing on Sep 6, the court had said in its order that “since several important constitutional issues have been raised in the petition, and the Federation has declined to file a written reply, three senior advocates, Senator S.M. Zafar, Abdul Hafeez Pirzada and Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan are appointed as amicus curiae to assist the court for interpretation of different articles of the constitution and provisions of law.”
Mohammad Akram Sheikh, counsel for Qazi Hussain Ahmad, Friday filed an application in the Supreme Court that the full court comprising all the 17 judges of the court should hear these important petitions.