No Intention Of Sacking Army Chief, ISI Chief, Says Govt

Islamabad, Jan 21, IRNA - The government has told the Supreme Court that it had no plans to sack Army Chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Director General Ahmed Shuja Pasha for filing replies in Memo case, media reported on Saturday. However, the Supreme Court asked the government to submit a written assurance on the issue in two weeks. The order was issued by a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. The chief justice was acting in response to a petition from lawyer Fazal Karim Butt, who had asked the court to ensure the government was not to remove the army and ISI chiefs. The Attorney General Maulvi Anwarul Haq dismissed the claims as media speculation. “The government has no intention to sack them,” he told the court. The AG objected to the maintainability of the petition, stating it was filed on the basis of misleading newspaper reports written in the conjecturing tone that has accompanied much of the Memogate scandal. The petitioner said that the president and prime minister are apprehensive about receiving a verdict against them in the Memogate hearing. The petition also claimed the government has harassed and blackmailed the top army brass through their public statements, which have repeatedly surfaced in the print and electronic media. He believed the government is not empowered to sack the military chiefs, arguing that since the president and the prime minister granted extensions to Gen Kayani and Lt Gen Pasha, they are therefore barred under law from curtailing their tenures./end