NRO implementation verdict: five-member Supreme Court bench to hear review petition on August 15

The Supreme Court has constituted a five-member special bench to hear on 15 August the review petition filed by the government against the NRO implementation verdict. The hearing is to decide the validity of the Court's 12 July orders well before 27 August when Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf is summoned in a contempt notice to explain why he has failed to implement the court orders on the NRO implementation case.
On Saturday, the cause list was revised and a special bench of Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa was formed to hear the review petition filed by the Attorney General for Pakistan (AGP) Irfan Qadir on August 8 against the July 12 Supreme Court order. Through that order, Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf was directed to write a letter to Swiss authorities to reopen graft cases against President Asif Ali Zardari.
The special bench would be led by Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa. It will comprise Justice Sarmad Jalal Osmany, Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan, Justice Gulzar Ahmed and Justice Muhammad Ather Saeed On August 8, the government urged the court to review its July 12 order in the NRO implementation case with a plea to set aside the order through which the Prime Minister Ashraf was asked to write a letter to Swiss authorities for the revival of graft cases against President Asif Ali Zardari.
The petition was filed on behalf of the government by Attorney General for Pakistan Irfan Qadir who contended that the premier had not received any advice to write a letter. The AGP pleaded that Raja Pervez Ashraf was not bound to write the letter, adding that the Supreme Court's June 27 and July 12 orders in the case were unlawful and if the letter had been written, it would be a violation of Article 248 of Constitution.
Another argument made in the review petition was that if the court itself could not write the letter to Swiss authorities, why it was expecting from the PM to do so. "The PM of Pakistan by virtue of his oath is bound to preserve and protect the constitution and he is under a constitutional obligation to disregard any order of the court which negates the constitution or law," the AGP contended.
The petition maintained that the main judgement in the NRO case was recorded by a 17-member bench and it could not be implemented by a seven-member bench. It further added that the then premier, Yousuf Raza Gilani, was convicted by following the second option specified by the apex court. "Therefore, option No 2 has exhausted and could not apply as it had already been exercised against the then PM Yusuf Raza Gilani," the AGP contended in the petition. It maintained that the issue of implementing para 178 - to write a letter to Swiss authorities - no longer arose in respect of PM Raja Pervez Ashraf as the court had already punished one premier for contempt.
The petition further stated that the PM was bound to act upon the advice given by the federal cabinet and he had not received any such advice from his cabinet to implement para 178 of the judgement. It added that in the NRO case, over 8,000 persons were not heard and thus this was the only case of its kind in the judicial history of the world.
The petition argued that the legal errors in the apex court order of July 12 required to be revisited, and pleaded the court to set aside or recall this order. The Supreme Court had on July 12 ordered Raja to submit a compliance report by July 25, which was not submitted. The court then set August 8 deadline for Raja to implement its order by writing a letter to Swiss authorities.