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Summary Legal experts were surprised by AGs act to nominate CJ as a witness in Malik Riaz contempt case.
A two-member bench of the Supreme Court, comprising of Justice Ejaz Afzal and Justice Ijaz Chaudhry, will resume hearing of Malik Riaz contempt case today.Attorney General (AG) Irfan Qadir on Saturday submitted a list of six witnesses, including the chief justice of Pakistan Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, former premier Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani, Registrar Supreme Court Faqir Hussain and Malik Riaz’s son-in-law Salman Ahmad.Names of these personalities were mentioned in Malik Riaz’s June 12 press conference. It is for the first time in the courts’ history of Pakistan that Chief Justice of Pakistan has been named as a witness in any case. The move was also surprising for Adviser to the Prime Minister Fawad Chaudhry.During previous hearing, the court had ordered Attorney General to present a list of witnesses but no one would have thought that the name of the head of the apex court would be included in the list. The legal experts have termed Attorney General’s action as an attempt to portray Chief Justice as controversial.
