Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Senior Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leader and former Senate chairman Mian Raza Rabbani has censured the top court’s decision allowing former dictator General (r) Pervez Musharraf to file nomination papers for the upcoming general polls.

In a statement issued on Friday, Rabbani said: “The rule of law shall evade Pakistan if Musharraf is allowed to file his nomination papers.”

The senior politician noted that the retired army general had been declared an absconder by a special court trying him for treason under Article 6 of the constitution.

“He had fraudulently misled the court on the pretext of ill-health and had since then been absconding the country,” said Rabbani. He added Musharraf had been declared an absconder in two other cases; the judges detention case being heard by special Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) and in the murder of PPP leader Benazir Bhutto.

“It is a matter of grave concern that a person who has been declared an absconder and whose warrants of arrest had been issued by various courts had been allowed to file his nomination papers, conditionally,” the statement reads.

“It appears that those who abrogated or hold the constitution in abeyance and are fugitive from justice are at a premium in Pakistan.”

The Supreme Court had summoned the erstwhile president on June 13 in response to a petition against a 2013 Peshawar High Court (PHC) judgement disqualifying him for life for promulgating emergency in November, 2007.

The apex court had assured counsel for Musharraf that the former president would not be arrested while returning officers were directed to receive his nomination papers for the elections subject to case outcome.

The decision was also criticised by PPP leader Khurshid Shah who expressed his doubt over Musharraf appearing before the court. “He will not come to Pakistan.”

Published in Daily Times, June 9^th 2018.