A three-member bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and also comprising Justice Khilji Arif Hussain and Justice Tariq Parvez was hearing a plea seeking orders for registration of a second First Information Report (FIR) against Musharraf and 12 others in the Benazir Bhutto assassination case.
Justice Chaudhary said the UN investigation report on Benazir Bhutto assassination case should have been made public. Aslam Chaudhry, a petitioner in the case, said that keeping the UN report on Benazir murder secret reflected the ill intentions of the ruling party. Rehman Malik, who is one of respondents, failed to submit a reply in the court once again and his lawyer, Anwar Mansoor, sought more time to come up with an "appropriate reply." The CJP then remarked: "Rehman Malik should himself be in the forefront to record his statement before the court".
"How a man [Rehman Malik] who is handling all the issue can hold a thorough inquiry? Remember this is not an ordinary case of Khair Din and Chiragh Din...this is the murder case of the country's as well as world's top leader." He said that how unfortunate it was that the government had failed to investigate the murder of its own leader. "This is very pathetic that the government is still clueless about people behind the assassination of Benazir. It spent over Rs 60 million on UN probe into her killing but the report was never made public," he added.
The chief justice regretted over the insistence of Dr Khalid Ranjha, the lawyer for another respondent, former chief minister Punjab Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, for urging the court not to press for the registration a second FIR in the case. Justice Chaudhry while addressing the lawyers for Rehman Malik and Kamal Shah asked draw a comparison between their clients and the late Benazir Bhutto. "Just see the level of your clients and that of Benazir Bhutto. I'm sure you will understand who she was," he added.
The 12 respondents in the case included the then president, Pervez Musharraf, the then Punjab chief minister, Pervaiz Elahi, Interior Minister Rehman Malik, the then law minister, Babar Awan, the then acting interior minister, Lieutenant General Hamid Nawaz (Retd), the then director general of Intelligence Bureau, Ijaz Hussain Shah, the then interior secretary, Syed Kamal Shah, the then Interior Ministry's spokesman, Brigadier Javed Iqbal Cheema (Retd), the then Rawalpindi DCO, Irfan Elahi, the then Rawalpindi SSP Saud Aziz and SPs Khurram Shehzad and Yasin Farooq. The hearing was adjourned till April 24.