Senior most judge of the Supreme Court Justice Rana Bhagwandas will return home today (Wednesday) from New Delhi. According to sources, Justice Rana Bhagwandas will fly into Pakistan on PIA Delhi-Karachi flight PK273. According to sources, his seat has been reconfirmed in the economy class of PK273.
The flight is scheduled to leave for Pakistan on 1430 from Indian capital tomorrow and to land at Karachi Jinnah International Airport at 4 pm. Justice Rana Bhagwandas will depart for Islamabad on March 22, where he would be sworn in as Acting Chief Justice of Pakistan.
OUR ISLAMABAD CORRESPONDENT ADDS: The 'non-functional' Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry has said that his resignation is out of the question and that he will contest the reference against him in the Supreme Judicial Council.
He was talking to the President and members of the executive committee of the Supreme Court Bar Association who called on him at his residence here on Tuesday evening to express the Association's solidarity with, and unstinted support to, the Chief Justice.
A member of the executive committee told Business Recorder that the CJ thanked the legal fraternity for their unprecedented support and said he had not filed any application in the SJC but had raised objections over the present composition of the SJC, but the hearing has been adjourned.
Earlier, addressing a press conference the SCBA President, Munir A Malik, and members of the executive committee said that the lawyers would continue their countrywide movement and would boycott the courts on Wednesday as per programme announced to press their demands, which include withdrawal of reference against the CJ and cases against the lawyers, resignation of President Musharraf and setting up a national consensus government to hold fair and transparent general elections in 90 days in the country. He said that that NWFP Bar Council would hold a lawyers' convention on March 22 as a part of struggle for independence of judiciary.
AFP adds: A deputy attorney general and a judge resigned on Tuesday. Deputy attorney general Nasir Saeed Sheikh became the most senior state lawyer to quit amid a wave of resignations by judges and legal figures over the March 9 suspension of Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry.
"Yes I have resigned," Sheikh told AFP. "Under the prevailing constitutional position it is not possible for me to work." Separately Javed Memon, a senior Civil Judge in the town of Kotri, became the eighth judge to resign over the growing controversy. Memon had sent notice of his resignation to the registrar of Sindh High Court, a court official said on condition of anonymity.