ISLAMABAD – The Supreme Court on Friday disposed of National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) case against Pervez Musharraf, Asif Ali Zardari and former attorney general Justice (r) Malik Mohammad Qayyum.
A three-member bench, headed by Chief Justice Saqib Nisar, observed that the apex court shall not proceed further in the matter as the respondents had submitted details of their assets on records.
At the outset of the hearing, the Chief Justice enquired about the petitioner Feroz Shah Gilani as the court had issued notices to respondents. To this, Gilani’s counsel informed the bench that he was ill and did not appear before the court.
Justice Nisar remarked, court has received the asset details of Zardari, Musharraf and Malik Qayyum and now law will follow its due course. The court then wrapped up Feroz Shah’s petition.
Nominating Musharraf, Zardari and Qayyum as respondents, petitioner Feroz Shah Gilani had requested the court in April to order recovery of ‘huge amounts of public money’ allegedly misappropriated and wasted by them through unlawful means “already on record in different judgments of the Supreme Court and high court”.
He had contended that Musharraf subverted the Constitution by declaring emergency followed by the promulgation of the NRO, through which criminal and corruption cases against politicians, including Zardari, were “arbitrarily withdrawn”.
Since the SC in its landmark judgment of December 16, 2009 has declared the NRO void ab initio, the respondents are liable to compensate the losses and the damage suffered by the exchequer of debt-ridden Pakistan, he pleaded.
