The strange spectacle at Pakistan’s Supreme Court in Islamabad on November 28 was one of gut-wrenching suspense—a veritable cliffhanger—worthy of an Alfred Hitchcock thriller.
In the dock before a three-judge bench of the apex court headed by Chief Justice Asif Khosa was Imran Khan’s government, which had been summoned by the court two days earlier to justify the three-year extension it wanted to grant to Army Chief General Qamar Bajwa, slated to retire at midnight on November 28. What if the court didn’t approve of the government’s will? How would Imran stomach the humiliation? What would its fallout be on his 15-month-old government? No pundit dared to hazard a guess on which way the wind would blow or how the chips would fall.
The bizarre saga of extension in the service tenure of Gen. Bajwa began back in August this year when Imran announced his decision to give him a fresh lease of another three years. His announcement didn’t cause any ripples or excitement. Extension in the service tenure of army chiefs has been a matter of routine to Pakistanis, and because of it they have become blasé about the issue.
There is a history to army chiefs getting their tenure extended, with or without their asking for it. Bonapartes such as Gen. Zia-ul-Haq and Gen. Pervez Musharraf accorded inordinately lengthy extensions to themselves because the buck in Pakistan stopped at their desk.But even political leaders, the likes of Asif Ali Zardari and Nawaz Sharif, weren’t shy of obliging their military commanders. Bajwa’s predecessor Gen. Raheel Sharif was a rare military chief who retired at the end of his tenure. He wasn’t interested in a second innings at the helm of Pakistan’s army because he had been offered a more lucrative and rewarding (financially) post as commander of a pan-Islamic force cobbled by Saudi’s royalty to combat the menace of terrorism.
So Imran’s decision to keep an old tradition alive and not digress from the status quo didn’t ruffle any feathers. This was so until recently when, out of the blue, a lawyer from an unknown entity, the Jurist Foundation, petitioned the apex court challenging the PM’s decision to extend his army chief’s tenure. The petitioner subsequently wanted to withdraw his disturbing petition. But at this point, the macabre drama—reaching its nerve-wrecking climax on November 28—began with a real bang that held Pakistan in its thrall for days on end.
To the utter surprise of everyone—from PM Imran down to media hacks and television anchors—Chief Justice Khosa wouldn’t allow the petition to be withdrawn. To add suspense to the unfolding drama—a virtual insult over injury to an askance Imran—the chief justice decided to change the petition into a suo motu notice of the apex court, thereby pitching himself smack into the epicentre of the case.
This was the only time in his 11 months at the pinnacle of Pakistan’s justice system that Justice Khosa used his suo motu discretion. Ironically, only days earlier, he had criticised his predecessor for his liberal use of this discretionary power. But he seemed unfazed and unapologetic eating his own words. Imran’s government was caught unawares and off-guard by Khosa’s offensive. It was least expected of a chief justice who will himself be retiring in a month’s time. Some parting gift for a bemused Imran.
But Khosa was only returning Imran’s compliment. A week earlier, the PM had riled and thumbed his nose, publicly, at the double standards of the country’s justice system that was harsh and inclement to the poor but mollycoddled the rich and powerful with kid gloves. Imran was visibly angry at the Lahore High Court that had allowed the disgraced Nawaz Sharif to go abroad for medical treatment, on humanitarian grounds.
Khosa took exception to the lack of clarity in Imran’s decision to grant an extension to a retiring army chief. The Constitution had no provision for a fresh lease in the chief’s tenure, and neither did the Army Act regulating service conditions of those in uniform.
In the end, however, in an act of largesse, on the heels of a no-holds-barred grilling of the government, the apex court granted a six-month provisional extension to Gen. Bajwa. The verdict came with a caveat: The government must legislate, in six months, clearly defining terms and conditions of tenure of an army chief, including room for or against its extension.
Imran’s government hasn’t come out of the episode unscathed. Quite the contrary, the government looks badly bruised and humbled by the court’s dressing down of its sloppy, amateurish and lacklustre performance. But this isn’t the end of Imran’s travails. The road ahead could take further toll on him; his supporters should pray the toll is not too heavy.
Legislating constitutional amendments on the subject would demand of Imran to have the opposition on board, too. That would be an uphill task because of daylight between the ruling party and the opposition, whose stalwarts have long been baying for Imran’s blood. Imran may have to stomach more compromises, which would be daunting to his Himalayan ego. It’s threatening to be a sticky wicket for the Captain to play on.
Karamatullah K Ghori
Former Pakistani diplomat
Email: K_K_ghori@hotmail.com