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Summary A nine-member bench of the Supreme Court has started the hearing of memogate case.
The nine-member bench headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan, Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry has started the hearing of memo case.During the hearing of the memo case on Tuesday, the Attorney General of Pakistan said the memo was just a piece of paper and the Supreme Court should not conduct hearing, as parliamentary body was probing it.The CJP asked the AG as to what happened to the probe into Benazir Bhutto murder case after the lapse of four years.The CJP further said no one can bar the apex court from hearing any case.The AG said no one was barring the court, to which Justice Jawad S Khwaja responded by saying let the court look into the matter. If the memo is fake, the government will stand vindicated, he added. The court said Mansoor Ijaz has sent 32 pictures of his BlackBerry.Both the accused and the one who wrote the memo want the probe to be conducted, added the court. Justice Ijaz Afzal said the endangered sovereignty could endanger the country itself.Attorney General Maulvi Anwarul Haq reiterated that parliament’s national security committee should investigate and not the court, which has been asked by the opposition and intelligence chief to order an independent inquiry.The memo was allegedly an attempt by a close aide of President Asif Ali Zardari to enlist American help to head off a feared military coup in May in exchange for overhauling the country s powerful security leadership.The scandal has fuelled rampant speculation that Zardari’s days are numbered and a decision from the Supreme Court to investigate would build pressure on the president, with most observers expecting early elections sometime in 2012.
