ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government is working on a two-pronged strategy to give Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa an extension in his tenure.
Informed sources claimed that besides challenging the Supreme Court’s verdict in the extension matter, the government is also planning to move the parliament for legislation in this regard.
A month after the SC ruled on the army chief’s extension, the government filed a review petition last week raising 26 questions of law against the judgement while pleading for “preservation of two leading institutions” for a “healthy democracy”.
The government also apprised the top court that Gen Bajwa’s contributions to national security “will go down in history” and the “public at large has warmly welcomed” his reappointment.
On Nov 28, a three-judge bench – headed by then chief justice Asif Saeed Khosa – had given the government six months to legislate on the tenure and other service terms of a COAS or else appoint a replacement of Gen Bajwa.
According to a source, the government would try to get the law passed to accord extension to the army chief with a simple majority while the court has been moved to restore its moral authority as there were “glaring mistakes” in the judgement.
Commenting on the issue, Advocate Khawaja Shahid Rasool said that moving the SC with a review petition was not a good move as the scope of the petition is too limited to get a favourable verdict.
“The prime minister has an option to give extension every six months. The other option is amending the law with a simple majority which the government already has. So I wonder why the law minister has decided to move a review petition to the same bench with little scope available for a favourable judgement,” he said.
Rasool said that the prime minister was ill-advised by his legal team and Law Minister Naseem Farogh should be penalised for causing embarrassment to the prime minister time and again.
“I wonder why law minister is giving bad advice to the prime minister. Either he is incompetent or he wants to embarrass the prime minister,” he asserted.
“The bench cannot give an entirely different decision in a review petition. Normally, a review petition is filed where minute mistakes are found in the judgement. We know that only a full bench can overturn the judgement in a fresh petition but the judgement can’t be reversed in a review petition,” he added.
He said that since the government enjoyed simple majority in the National Assembly it should make a move to amend the law.
When contacted, Minister for Science and Technology Fawad Chaudhry confirmed that the government was adopting a two-pronged strategy over the issue by moving the apex court and the parliament.
“Apparently, yes. The government is moving on both forums,” he said.
