ISLAMABAD: Supreme Court (SC) on Wednesday ordered the removal of former president Pervez Musharraf’s name from the Exit Control List (ECL), allowing him to travel abroad for medical treatment.
While hearing a pending federal government appeal against a 2014 Sindh High Court order removing Musharraf’s name from the ECL, a five-member bench headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Anwar Zaheer Jamali upheld the ruling. The government’s appeal was rushed through by it on June 14, 2014 on the apprehension that once Musharraf left the country, he may not return to stand trial under Article 6 of the Constitution. On June 23, 2014, the apex court had suspended the SHC judgement until it decided the pending appeal, and also formulated a set of questions to determine whether Musharraf could be allowed to leave Pakistan.
The apex court had, in an earlier verdict on April 8, 2013, ordered the government to place Musharraf’s name on the ECL and ensure that he did not leave Pakistan until the court order was varied or modified. The five-member bench on Wednesday gave the order after hearing the arguments of Attorney General Salman Aslam Butt, the petitioner representing the federal government, and Barrister Farogh Nasim, Musharraf’s counsel. “For reasons recorded separately, the [federal government’s] appeal has been dismissed,” the order said.
However, the order will not preclude the federal government and special court’s proceedings against him under Article 6 from passing any appropriate legal order for regulating his custody or movement, it said. Musharraf, who is facing a treason trial for clamping emergency in the country on November 3, 2007, has been ordered by a three-judge special court seized to record his statement on March 31. The bench on Wednesday also disposed off Musharraf’s application seeking one-time permission to proceed abroad for the treatment of a spinal ailment that has afflicted him for some time now on the grounds that the petition was now infructuous.
In a fresh application, Musharraf stated that his medical condition has greatly worsened. The application recalls a May 4, 2014 medical report, prepared by a private medical board consisting of top neurologists and orthopaedic surgeons from Karachi, which stated that Musharraf had fractured his vertebra. The report had also indicated that the treatment for this kind of a fracture was not available in Pakistan, and surgery had to be performed in Dubai, North America or Europe.
