ISLAMABAD-The 14-judge bench of the Supreme Court has overturned the Dogar Courts judgment in the Tikka Iqbal Khan case that had remained the main reference point during past one and half years in the legal and constitutional narrative in the country. The likes of Hafeez Pirzada, Sharifuddin Pirzada, Malik Qayyum and others cited it to justify all of Musharrafs actions. It was claimed that the Dogar Court had not only legally legitimized the emergency and Musharrafs other acts but also provided the requisite validation freeing him from the necessity of seeking parliamentary indemnity. They maintained that the Parliament could reverse the actions of one man only by a two thirds majority because of courts decision. Then Khosas and Naeks of present government joined them to effectively block the restoration of deposed judges while taking cover behind Dogar Courts verdict. Little do the people know who is Tikka Iqbal Khan and how his petition was filed and manipulated in the Dogar Court. There is also much less public knowledge that the characters in the case- the petitioner, the counsels on both sides and the honourable members sitting on the bench- were almost all the Presidents men. The farce was conceived and stage-managed from the Army House first in November when the petition was filed and rejected and later in February when a review petition was also filed and turned down in indecent haste only three days before the general elections. Tikka Iqbal Khan was once a provincial minister in the PPP government in mid-1990s. He and Musharraf became friends when Musharraf took over. He was a frequent visitor of the Army House while Musharraf quite often joined him in partying at his Johar Town house in Lahore. The friendship was put to fruitful action in the constitutional petition challenging the emergency and the PCO, ostensibly to extract a court judgment in Musharrafs favour. In his order proclaiming emergency as army chief and all subsequent edicts including the Provisional Constitution Order (PCO), Musharraf specifically excluded the court from challenging any of them. But the Dogar Court ignored these provisos, asserted the right of the Supreme Court to review any legislation and then handed over the required ruling to Musharraf. The need to bring the court into the case arose because of an unprecedented pre-emptive step taken by seven judges of the Iftikhar Chaudhry Court. They met just before Musharraf imposed emergency and issued the PCO on November 3, 2007. They threw spanner in the works by staying the promulgation of the PCO and forbidding the judges from taking oath under it. The lethal nature of this ruling was fully understood by Musharrafs legal advisers, notwithstanding his declarations forbidding the courts from questioning his authority. A counter strategy was thus devised in which Abdul Hamid Dogar was chosen to do the bidding. He was never rated a judge of any substance nor he has to his credit any particular judgment to be mentioned in the annals of countrys judiciary. He was picked up to perform the infamy of validating the emergency and the PCO and endorsing Musharrafs assumption of the power of suspending and then amending the constitution. He dutifully did whatever he was assigned to do. The same thing he repeated for Asif Zardari whom he would visit late after midnight in the Zardari House. After declaration of emergency, the registrar was eased out verbally and a lady was named as acting registrar. The stay order by 7-judge bench was first overthrown by this acting registrar through a press release on one Sunday night. During next couple of days four more judges were hastily named in addition to the four who had taken oath under the PCO in Islamabad in order to constitute a bench that could override the ruling of the seven judges. Tikka Khan filed the petition challenging the emergency. The court ignored the fact that the stay order against the PCO by 7-member bench was issued on a petition by Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan who was also detained along with the judges. The court could have directed the administration to bring Aitzaz from the jail but it did not bother to do so. Malik Qayyum led the argument to justify the emergency and the PCO and 'won the case. Latest investigation reveals that Dogar deliberately concealed the ruling by the seven judges. The macabre pantomime did not end there. On February 18, 2008, general elections were to be held. In order to offset the disastrous effect of a possible defeat of Musharrafs allies on the judgment if it was reviewed, another plan was executed on Thursday, February 14. The detailed judgment in the case was hastily written virtually reproducing the arguments of Malik Qayyum and the earlier reasons given in the proclamation for the emergency. Within an hour its copies were provided to Tikka Iqbal Khan who was running temperature that day. A review petition was filed on his behalf which was immediately admitted by Justice Dogar and its hearing was fixed for next day. After brief arguments, the review petition was dismissed the same day.