I hope Chowk staff fixes this filter issue ...In the mean time rea my post here...

#1 An Unexpected Birthday Gift on March 21, 2007

#30 by rahul_capri on March 21, 2007 2:30am PT

“ I am puzzled by one thing. If the CJ had to be taken out, why the highhandedness?”

Though Feroz has taken a stab at this but here is how I think the whole drama was played out.

The Mush admin knew what the CJ was doing and they were getting ready to act against him. They were setting up the ground way before the confrontation.

I hope you have seen Naeem Bukharis’ letter. Naeem was an assistant to S M Zafar, a major Army Lawyer at par with Sharif Pirzada. Naeem was also Zafar’s BIL after marrying Zafar’s Sali Tahira Syed the famous Singer and Malika Pukhraj’s daughter. Btw, Naeem Bukhari’s Brother Salim Altaf is CEO of the Pakistan cricket board and played for Pakistan Cricket team in the 70s. Naeem became the conduit to create a case against the CJ. Naeem is not intelligent or political enough to get in to this. I think the letter was drafted by S M Zafar and Naeem just signed it.

The Mush admin also asked the Sindh govt and to make a case against the CJ. They also got a reference from the Peshawar high court. So they had the case ready all they had to do was send the reference to the Judicial Council quietly. If they had done so,the onus would have been on the CJ. The CJ would have had no choice but to step down until the case is resolved. Instead of taking this civilized road the Mush admin ended up making a spectacle out of this.

My read is that when Mush met CJ, and the CJ refused to resign, Mush got angry and in a typical army fit of anger decided to throw him out or cut him to size right away. There was no need for suspending the CJ or putting him under house arrest. Mush made a bad judgment call.
I would call that a typical army officer’s way of handling political issues when they act first and think later.

Without raising the parochial flag, I would also say that in the subcontinent Punjabi, Upian and Bengali have short tempers and often are not very good thinkers off their feet. A sindhi would have taken his time thinking through the whole thing and then would have stayed with the plan. Mushy in a typical show of power lost the whole game plan.

A word of caution here to Manto and Feroz. Don’t have high expectations about Rana Bhagwan Das. He is a consummate politician and will play his cards. There is a serious opposition to his becoming the CJ in the army. No doubt, he is a smart person but also full of himself.