ISLAMABAD  -  The counsels for Bar Councils and the Associations Tuesday conclud­ed their submission in former Pres­ident Pervez Musharraf’s conviction in the high treason case by a Spe­cial Court. A four-member bench of the apex court headed by Chief Jus­tice of Pakistan Justice Qazi Faez Isa and comprising Justice Syed Man­soor Ali Shah, Justice Athar Minal­lah, and Justice Amin-ud-Din Khan conducted hearing of the appeals of Bar Councils/Associations and two individuals against the judgment of a three-member bench of the LHC.

Hamid Khan, who appeared on behalf of Tauseef Asif, ex-Presi­dent Lahore High Court Bar Associ­ation (LHCBA), Rawalpindi Bench, Vice-Chairman Pakistan Bar Coun­cil Haroon Rasheed and its Chair­man Executive Committee Hassan Pasha, Rasheed A Rizvi, represent­ing Sindh High Court Bar Associa­tion (SHCBA), Hafiz Abdur Rehman Ansari, and Azhar Iqbal concluded their arguments against the Lahore High Court (LHC) judgment dated 13-01-2020.

Additional Attorney General Aamir Rehman rather than support­ing the impugned judgment relied upon the apex court judgments. Sal­man Safdar, the counsel for former army chief, submitted that the Spe­cial Court on 17-12-2019 had an­nounced the judgment, while the LHC delivered short order on 13-01-20 on the constitution of Special Court. He stated that his client had filed the appeal against the Special Court judgment on 16-01-2020. The Court noted this meant Musharraf was aware of the LHC short order but did not rely on it while filing ap­peal against the Special Court judg­ment before the Supreme Court. He sought sometime to contact Musharraf’s family, saying till now not succeeded in contacting them.

The bench said that in the last hearing it had issued notices to the legal heirs of Pervez Musharraf and the matter was reported in the me­dia across the world. It, therefore, asked Salman to get instruction from Musharraf’s family before next date regarding hearing of his appeal on merit. Earlier, Hamid Khan argued that at that time everybody, including the Amicus Curiae (Barrister Ali Zaf­ar), and the then federal government (PTI) seemed to be on one page. Jus­tice Mansoor then questioned what was the page? The senior counsel re­plied; “to declare the Special Court judgment void ab initio”.

Justice Athar questioned that how many time Article 6 of the Consti­tution was invoked in the country’s history? Hamid Khan said for the first in the history of Pakistan mili­tary dictator was tried under Article 6, adding the military regimes have badly damaged the country.