Islamabad, Dec 17 :
Pakistan’s top judge cautioned the government that “unbridled power or position, like unstructured discretion, is dangerous” before a bench headed by him gave a six-month conditional extension to the powerful Army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa last month, according to the detailed verdict in the case published on Monday. On November 28, Bajwa got a six-month conditional extension from the Supreme Court, ending an unprecedented legal wrangle that shook the government of Prime Minister Imran Khan and pitted the powerful military against the judiciary. Prime Minister Khan had extended Bajwa’s tenure through a notification in August, but the Supreme Court suspended it on November 26 due to irregularities in the manner of extension. After three days of heightened uncertainty, Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, who headed a three-member bench, through a short order, announced that Bajwa would remain the Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) for another six months during which the country’s Parliament would legislate on the Pakistan Army chief’s extension/reappointment. The ruling came in the nick of time as Bajwa, 59, was set to retire at midnight on November 28. Justice Khosa, in his additional note on the verdict, said that “in our peculiar historical context Chief of the Army Staff holds a powerful position in ways more than one,” adding that “unbridled power or position, like unstructured discretion, is dangerous,” Geo News reported. Justice Khosa, in his additional note on the verdict, noted that “it has been a shocking revelation to us that the terms and conditions of service of the COAS, the tenure of his office, extension in the tenure of his office or his reappointment have remained unregulated by any law so far.” He ended his note by saying that “the democratic maturity of our nation has reached a stage where this Court can proclaim that, as declared by Chief Justice Sir Edward Coke of England in the Commendam case in the year 1616 regarding the powers of King James I, “Howsoever high you may be; the law is above you”. The media, which published the detailed verdict, written by Justice Mansoor Ali Shah, states that Supreme Court bench found that “no tenure or age of retirement for the rank of General is provided under the law. As per the institutional practice a General retires on completion of a tenure of three years. Although an institutional practice cannot be a valid substitute of the law.”
“There is no provision in the law for extending service of a General for another tenure; nor is there any consistent and continuous institutional practice of granting such extension,” Justice Shah wrote, adding that the notification for the reappointment, extension and fresh appointment of Bajwa were ‘meaningless’ in absence of the relevant law.
