Thaindian News

Islamabad, Jan 10 (IANS) Pakistan’s Supreme Court Tuesday expressed its displeasure with the government over not implementing its verdict on the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) and referred the case to the chief justice, the Dawn reported.

The apex court had earlier warned the government of action if its ruling on the amnesty law, which granted immunity to politicians and bureaucrats in corruption cases, was not implemented by Jan 10, 2012.

The verdict sought reopening of cases closed under the NRO.

The court had also ordered the government to write a letter to the Swiss authorities to reopen cases against President Asif Ali Zardari, the Dawn said.

It had set a seven-day deadline for the government to implement the NRO verdict and submit a report.

A five-judge bench of the supreme court Tuesday decided to refer six options relating to the NRO case to Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and called for constitution of a larger bench for hearing of the options Jan 16, Geo News reported.

The options included: take action against the president for violating the constitution, initiate contempt proceedings against the chief executive and the law secretary for not implementing the NRO verdict, and making them ineligible from the membership of parliament.

Announcing the verdict, the bench headed by Justice Asif Saeed Khosa said: “The government is not taking interest to observe the order for the last two years. We know that the actions we are about to take, they may be unpleasant.”

“The court has taken oath to defend the constitution. The prime minister respected the party over the constitution.”

“The president in an interview to Geo News said his government would not implement one part of NRO verdict.”

“Prima facie, the prime minister is not an honest man and violated his oath,” Justice Khosa said.