Islamabad - The Islamabad High Court (IHC) will conduct hearing of four identical petitions filed against the verdict of Special Court in high treason case against former military ruler Pervez Musharraf on day-to-day basis from Tuesday (tomorrow).
A single bench of IHC comprising Justice Athar Minallah will resume hearing of the petitions filed by former Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, former judge of Supreme Court Justice (Retd) Abdul Hameed Dogar, former Law Minister Zahid Hamid and former President District Bar Association Rawalpindi Taufiq Asif Advocate who had challenged the Special Court’s verdict in which it had directed the federal government to include the names of former Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, former Federal Law Minister Zahid Hamid and former Supreme Court Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar as co-accused of Musharraf in high treason case.
Previously, in the reply submitted by the federation, it was adopted that the Special Court had exceeded from its powers by issuing this order since it is the exclusive right of the state to decide who to prosecute in high treason case under Article 6 and therefore, the Special Court could not direct for inclusion of the names of co-accused in this case.
During the hearing of the case, Advocate Taufiq Asif had requested the court that larger bench should be constituted to hear this case.
Opposing this plea, the counsel for Pervez Musharraf had said that a single bench could hear the petitions against the Special Court’s decisions because this has been done in the past. He also added that the court has yet to decide the matter of maintainability of these petitions.
Syed Iftikhar Gillani, counsel for former Supreme Court Justice Abdul Hamid Dogar, said that he has no objection over hearing of the case by a single bench. Justice Minallah had remarked that the court is bound to give decision in this case within one month in the light of directives of the Supreme Court. Later, the bench ordered for hearing the parties concerned on day-to-day basis separately and deferred the hearing of the case till May 19.
 for further proceedings.