ISLAMABAD, June 22: Pakistan Muslim League-N leaders said on Sunday that their party was against inclusion of a clause in the Finance Bill pertaining to increasing the number of judges in the Supreme Court but they had voted for it to avoid unnecessary confrontation with the Pakistan People’s Party at this stage. Talking to journalists outside the Parliament House, PML-N’s parliamentary leader in the National Assembly Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said: “So far as the reinstatement of the judges deposed through the Nov 3 action is concerned, we still believe that it must be done under the Bhurban accord. This is also the stance of the lawyers’ movement.”

He said the inclusion of the clause in the Finance Bill would create a misunderstanding that the deposed judges would be reinstated through the bill.

“In our view the deposed judges can only be reinstated through an executive order issued in order to restore the genuinely independent judiciary,” he said.

He said finance officials had given an impression that the clause was needed to regularise the salaries of the judges which had been paid from discretionary funds.

“We still stand by our position that the deposed judges can be reinstated through an executive order as agreed in Bhurban and the talks of our leadership have failed to achieve any breakthrough on this issue,” he said.

However, the PML-N and the PPP had come close on the question of impeaching Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf in the latest round of their talks in Lahore, he said.

Chaudhry Nisar said MNA Ayaz Amir’s statement in the house was close to the party’s stance on the issue of judges.

PML-N senior vice-president Tehmina Daultana said her party had supported the Finance Bill including the proposed increase in the number of judges despite its reservations to avoid a clash.

She told reporters that her party had fulfilled the pledge made by its leadership in the Lahore talks to help pass the Finance Bill without raising any objection.

She said the party was pursuing the stand it had undertaken before the election and its candidates had taken an oath to strive for reinstating the judges.

PML-N spokesman Siddiqul Farooq said the party had supported the bill because it lacked the majority in the assembly required to amend the Constitution.

Talking to a private TV channel, he said the party’s leadership had indicated during the Dubai talks that it could accept the current judges on an ad hoc basis.

He said the PML-N would rejoin the federal cabinet only after the reinstatement of the deposed judges.

Party leader Khwaja Saad Rafique said the sole purpose of accepting the increase in the number of Supreme Court judges to 29 was to ensure the restoration of the judiciary to the position of Nov 2, 2007.

Commenting on the passage of the Finance Bill, he said the PML-N had not given up its basic demand of reinstatement of the judges.