Treason trial: another setback for Musharraf as court rejects pleas

The Special Court trying former President and army chief Pervez Musharraf for high treason on Friday turned down pleas of the accused challenging its jurisdiction and judges' alleged bias. The court had reserved judgement on February 18 after the defence counsel advanced arguments to substantiate their pleas.
Announcing its 27-page reserved judgement, a three-member bench led by Justice Faisal Arab ruled that the judges of the Special bench were nominated by the respective chief justices of the provincial courts instead of the then Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry.
The judgement added that the notification for the nomination of the judges was issued on November 20, 2013 after the senior most three judges from the five nominated judges were selected. "The objection to the validity of the notification of November 20, 2013 is without any substance," the verdict said. Giving its verdict to the second plea, the court ruled that "the objection as to disqualification of a Judge on the ground of bias would only be sustainable when it is demonstrated that the judges had any interest in the proceedings by way of some gain or detriment in the outcome of the proceedings".
The judgement said, "the court is to see in terms of the possibility of bias rather than probability of bias based on mere suspicion - In the present case no animosity is attributed to any of the members of this court against the accused rather only an apprehension of bias is alleged on certain grounds, which in fact do not attract any rule of disqualification".
Responding to the contentions of defence counsel that Pervez Musharraf has been singled out in the instant matter whereas Proclamation of Emergency issued on November 3, 2007 was an outcome of a consultative process with the top decision makers of the then executive and armed forces, the court ruled, "The material that is before us at this stage is only limited to the extent that the accused consulted with certain functionaries of the State, both civil and military, before issuance of the Proclamation of Emergency, therefore, the involvement of any other person would depend on the record".
Dismissing the two applications the bench ruled that the pleas had no merit saying, "the decision, if recorded on the submission pertaining to being singled out and the retrospective effect of Article 6 of the Constitution would amount to decide the case at pre-mature stage, hence we intend not to record findings thereon at this stage of proceedings".