Thaindian News

Islamabad/London, July 22 (IANS) Pakistan’s Supreme Court Wednesday summoned former president Pervez Musharraf to defend his Nov 3, 2007 decision to impose an emergency and sack the apex court judges. Musharraf declined to immediately comment on the order.
A 14-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammed Chaudhry issued summons to Musharraf to appear in person or through his counsel on July 29 after the federal government refused to defend him in court.

“Determining responsibility for the steps taken on Nov 3, 2007 is necessary,” the chief justice observed before issuing summons.

Chaudhry, who was one of the 80-odd Supreme Court and high court judges judges sacked, had been reinstated in March after a bruising lawyers’ agitation.

The former president is on a lecture tour abroad and is currently in London. It was unclear when, if at all, he would return to Pakistan.

Asked in London about the Supreme Court order, he declined to comment.

Musharraf had sacked the higher judiciary after it refused to take fresh oath under the Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO) he promulgated along with the emergency Nov 3, 2007.

The emergency had been declared just as the Supreme Court was to deliver its verdict on the constitutionality of Musharraf’s re-election in October 2007.

It had been contended that the same parliament and provincial assemblies that had elected Musharraf in 2002 had re-elected him in 2007 and this was unconstitutional.