PPP offering to restore judges MINUS Ch. Iftikhar - Justice Tariq Mehmood
It is natural that some PPP leaders will publicly deny this sort of thing being offered. But why would Justice Tariq Mehmoond one of the leaders of judicial movement be claiming this, if not true?
Some top legal aides of PPP Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari have approached certain active members of the lawyers’ community to discuss a formula for the restoration of the deposed judges, which surprisingly does not include Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. Justice (retd) Tariq Mehmud confirmed to The News that this strange formula called the “Minus-One-Formula” was also discussed with him recently by a top legal mind in the PPP. Though this suggestion is in complete contrast with what was committed by the PPP and the PML-N top brass in the Bhurban Accord a few weeks back, it is not yet verified if this new formula has the backing of Asif Ali Zardari.
According to Justice Tariq, a PPP leader tried to convince him that the new PPP government would feel more comfortable with the present Chief Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar instead of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. “He (the PPP leader) was trying to convince me to approach Justice Iftikhar so that he should give a guarantee that after restoration he would immediately resign from the office of the chief justice on the very first day he will return to his office,” revealed Justice Tariq, adding deposed Justice Javed Iqbal also stands no chance of reinstatement as he has already accepted a government job meant for retired judges. This would leave Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar as the senior-most judge of the Supreme Court. Tariq quoted the PPP leader as suggesting: “If you accept this “Minus-One-Formula”, we will restore all other sacked judges in one go and there will be no more problems from any side in this regard. ”
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