Army chief’s extension: Issue settled after 44 days

ISLAMABAD: The issue of grant of three-year extension to Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa as Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) will stand settled on Wednesday after 44 days when it cropped up for the first time before the Supreme Court.

A three-member bench of the apex court held hearings for three days on 26th, 27th and 28th of November last and announced its short order on the concluding day. This was the first time that the issue of extension came up before the highest court although General Ziaul Haq, Pervez Musharraf and Ayub Khan had been giving extensions to themselves during their military rules.

The government waited for the detailed judgment to do the legislation as ordered by the Supreme Court, which was released 18 days later on Dec 16.

The verdict said that the court was exercising judicial restraint and leaves it to the government and parliament to do the require lawmaking relating to the extension/reappointment of the top military commander. It asked the government to define the tenure, terms and conditions of service of the army chief and to get their approval from the parliament within six months.

However, before seeking parliamentary approval of the amendments in the three laws, the government filed a review petition in the Supreme Court against the Dec 16 judgment. It also requested to stay the verdict. Only authorities know the relevance and significance of the review plea after the laws have been changed accordingly.

Instead of amending only the Pakistan Army Act, the government chose to change the laws relating to the navy, air and the chairman of the joint services chief as well. The clearance of the bills in the National Assembly standing committee and subsequently from the Lower House of Parliament remained hassle-free. The lacunae of consideration and approval of the bills from the joint standing committees of the two House was taken care of by producing them before the two bodies separately.

After their passage, the Senate standing committee, in an in-camera session, also smoothly approved the bills and are likely to see repeat proceedings of the National Assembly in the Senate on Wednesday.

President Dr Arif Alvi is expected to assent the bills the same day. The entire process became easy and smooth after the major opposition parties – the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) - agreed to vote for the bills.

The Senate body was headed by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Senator Walid Iqbal. Including its chairman, the ruling party has four members in the committee. They are Anwarul Haq Kakar and Sajjad Hussain Suri of the Balochistan Awami Party (BAP) and Federal Law Minister Dr Farogh Naseem belonging to the Mutahidda Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P).

On the other hand, the opposition parties have nine senators in the standing committee. The PML-N was represented by four MPs – Mushahid Hussain Sayed, Chaudhry Tanvir Khan, Lt-Gen (R) Abdul Qassum and Javed Abbasi.

Sherry Rehman and Abdul Rehman Malik belong to the PPP. Three senators come from the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F), National Party (NP) and Jamaat-e-Islami, which walked out from the National Assembly during voting on the services chiefs’ bills.

The numerical strength of the ruling alliance and opposition parties in the Senate standing committee turned out to be inconsequential as all the major parliamentary forces decided to support the legislation.

The government had planned to pass the bills on Friday but the passage was delayed on the demand of the PML-N and PPP, which stressed that the parliamentary procedures like referral of the proposed legislation to the two standing committees be followed. The ruling side agreed.

In his letter to the PML-N parliamentary leader Khawaja M Asif, deposed prime minister Nawaz Sharif had given a schedule for the approval of the bills, which extended to January 15.