Pak Attorney-General likely to be made scapegoat

The Pakistan Government is trying to find a scapegoat after the Supreme Court set aside the presidential reference against Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, and the axe is likely to fall on Attorney-General Makhdoom Ali Khan.

Islamabad, July 23 : The Pakistan Government is trying to find a scapegoat after the Supreme Court set aside the presidential reference against Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, and the axe is likely to fall on Attorney-General Makhdoom Ali Khan.

Since the filing of the reference, there has been a debate on who should own the responsibility and step down, the Dawn reported.

Political leaders have demanded resignation from President Pervez Musharraf, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and Law Minister Wasi Zafar.

But many government functionaries believe that the Attorney-General was primarily responsible for the mess.

An official said the Attorney-General was on his way out for mishandling the reference, and added that he was responsible for presenting a weak case.

The Dawn quoted him as saying, that the Attorney-General also failed to point out flaws in the affidavits submitted by various government functionaries, which turned out to be charge-sheets against the government itself.

According to him, one of the affidavits even led to the disclosure that phones of the judges and their relatives were still being tapped by the intelligence agencies and the court was compelled to direct intelligence agencies to debug the judges' residences.

The paper reported that the rumours are also making rounds in the capital that the Federal Minister for Law and Justice, who insisted that his ministry was ready to file a new reference against the Chief Justice, might also have to quit.

However, Wasi Zafar said, he will resign only if the Supreme Court's judgement finds him responsible for filing the reference.

One of the government's lawyers, Ahmad Raza Kasuri, is on record to have stated that he would have resigned, if he had been the law minister. Another counsel Justice (retd) Malik Abdul Qayyum had gone to the extent of stating before the Supreme Court that Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz "will resign if the reference is not upheld by the court".

ANI