The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to the federal government with a direction to submit report till May 12 on a plea filed by former chief justice of Pakistan Sajjad Ali Shah about his pension benefits.
A three-member bench, comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, Justice Raja Fayyaz Ahmed and Justice Chaudhry Ijaz Ahmed, was hearing a petition of former Justice Sajjad Ali Shah, seeking court's direction to the government to pay him the pension as chief justice of Pakistan.
Justice Sajjad Ali Shah (Retd) had got leave as chief justice on December 2, 1997 and retired on May 14, 1998 (as during the leave he had reached age of superannuation). He was granted the pension of a retired judge instead of chief justice. In his plea, he stated that he was the de-jure chief justice of Pakistan from June 1994 to December 1997, thus was entitled to be deemed as chief justice of Pakistan for that period.
Muhammad Akram Sheikh, counsel for justice Sajjad Ali Shah (Retd), apprised the court that justice Saad Saud Jan, who served as an acting chief justice of Pakistan just for 54 days had also been granted the pension benefits of the chief justice, thus, he said, justice Shah (Retd) was also entitled to get the pension of chief justice of Pakistan on legal fiction. Appearing on notice, Deputy Attorney General Shah Khawar sought time for taking instructions from the government to file reply, which the court allowed.