Daily Times

The federal government on Thursday sought a stay order from the Supreme Court against its November 28 verdict in the army chief extension of service case, a private TV channel reported.

The government in its plea requested the apex court ‘to accept the application and suspend/stay the operation of the impugned judgment dated November 28, 2019, in the interest of justice’.

This is the second petition filed in this high-profile case by the government.

On December 26, the law ministry had approached the top court against its detailed judgement issued on December 16, in which the federation was ordered to legislate on the matter within six months.

“The petitioners have a strong prima facie case to succeed; hence the operation of the impugned judgement may be suspended/stayed till the final decision of this civil review petition,” the petition filed on Thursday prayed to the court. It further stated that the ‘balance of convenience lies in favour of the petitioners’ and if the ‘injunction as prayed is not granted, the petitioners will suffer an irreparable loss’. It also asked the chief justice to constitute a larger bench comprising five judges to hear the review petition.

In its previous petition against the detailed order, the government had pleaded the court to keep the proceedings in-camera. The petition had further argued that the top court’s verdict did not take into account ‘important constitutional and legal’ points. It had stated that the apex court had itself ‘been giving extensions to additional and ad-hoc judges’, making a case for the government to exercise this discretion as well.