ISLAMABAD – The Supreme Court on Saturday returned a plea of former dictator president Pervez Musharraf seeking formation of a CJP-minus full court bench to hear his treason and claiming that only the federal government could initiate such a case and the apex court cannot order its initiation.A two-member bench, headed by Justice Jawwad S Khawaja, is hearing tomorrow (Monday) five identical petitions against the former army chief for subverting the constitution and holding it in abeyance.Earlier in the day on Saturday, General (r) Musharraf filed a miscellaneous application in the apex court through his counsel Ahmed Raza Khan Qasuri seeking a full court bench and exclusion of chief justice from that bench, expressing mistrust in Justice Chaudhry, who had denied taking unconstitutional oath from him and was resultantly deposed from his office.But the SC’s institution branch returned Musharraf’s application, saying prayer has no relevance with the submission of the plea to constitute a minus-CJ full court bench. The branch also pointed out that the CMA he had filed under order XXXIII, Rule 06 of Supreme Court Rules, 1980 has also not mentioned purpose of it. However, it said separate application may be filed for larger bench and exclusion of CJ, if so desired by him.In his plea, Musharraf contended that it is the exclusive domain of the federal government to initiate proceedings against any person who abrogates, subverts or suspends constitution, or holds it in abeyance, or attempts or conspires to do so by use or show of force or by any other unconstitutional means.He questioned, “Whether it is not a fact that only an authorised officer of the federal government is competent to lodge a report against a person who is accused of subverting the constitution, and none else, thus, the law has virtually closed all doors for anyone else in the country to initiate such proceedings.”Raza Kasuri contended whether it is not a fact that the Supreme Court is not competent under the dictates of the constitution to issue any direction to federal government to initiate proceedings against his client saying initiation of proceedings under High Treason (Punishment) Act, 1973 is within exclusive jurisdiction of the federal government (Executive).He contended that any direction given by the court to federal government to initiate proceedings against Musharraf would be a blatant violation of the principle of the tracheotomy of power because all the organs of the state namely Executive, Legislature and Judiciary are the creation of the constitution and their powers are regulated by it. Constitutional deadlock is created when one organ oversteps its parameters and enters into the domain of another state organ, he added.He contended that question of law raised in the CMA were basically questions of national importance and of great constitutional significance. He maintained that many of these questions have not been adjudicated before and as such law has never been developed in this yet unearthed area of Pakistani law, besides there is a little guidance in modern jurisprudence from other jurisdictions as well. “It would be appropriate and in accordance with justice and fair play that a full court bench minus Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry may be constituted to hear this important constitutional controversy”.