In a sudden development, Pakistan’s Chief Justice Iftakar Muhammad Choudhary was today sacked by President Pervez Musharraf on charges of “misconduct” and “misuse of authority”.

Ever since he took over the post in June 2005, Justice Choudhary, who earlier served as judge of Balochistan High Court, has shown judicial activism, hitherto not familiar to Pakistan’s judiciary, which in the past was accused of toeing the line of the military and governments of the day.

Besides expediting the clearance of the backlog of the cases, Choudhary also actively pursued cases of disappearing persons and consistently pressured the intelligence agencies to produce them in the court. He, however, has been accused in the past using his powers get his son Arslan appointed to a lucrative job.

Justice Javed Iqbal was sworn in the Acting Chief Justice, although Justice Bhagwan Das is the seniormost judge after Choudhary, who had held the position since 2005. Justice Das is currently touring India, officials said. The action came after Justice Choudhary was called for discussions by Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and confronted with the charges in answer to which he could not give any satisfactory reply, an official announcement said.

Analysts here said that that this was the first time in the chequered history of Pakistan’s judiciary the Chief Justice was summarily removed and tried under Presidential reference by Supreme Judicial Council, which consists of the Chief Justice, two senior-most judges of the Supreme Court and two Chief Justices of provincial cases. “Musharraf, on the advice of PM Shaukat Aziz, has sent a reference to the Supreme Judicial Council against the Chief Justice of Pakistan after receiving numerous complaints and serious allegations for misconduct, misuse of authority and actions prejudicial to the dignity of office of the Chief Justice of Pakistan,” it said.

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