ISLAMABAD, July 17: The Supreme Court hearing a review petition of Dr Arsalan Iftikhar, son of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, made it clear on Tuesday that it alone had the prerogative to list and fix cases for hearing.

“It is once again stated clearly that it is for the court itself to determine the listing of the cases,” said a two-judge special bench comprising Justice Jawwad S. Khwaja and Justice Khilji Arif Hussain while dictating an order after a brief hearing on the petition.

The observation was made in response to objections raised by Advocate Zahid Bokhari, the counsel for property magnate Malik Riaz, who questioned why the case had been listed for Tuesday when there was no urgency in the matter and that a number of earlier review petitions were still pending and not heard.

In his petition, Dr Arsalan challenged the June 14 Supreme Court order which, he claimed, contained inherent and apparent errors.

In the said order the court had asked Attorney General Irfan Qadir to handle the controversy relating to allegations of a business deal worth Rs342 million between Dr Arsalan and Malik Riaz.

On Tuesday, Advocate Sardar Muhammad Ishaq Khan, representing Dr Arsalan, requested the court to order closure of what he called illegal inquiry against his client by the JIT and questioned why the National Accountability Bureau had been asked to conduct the inquiry when there were several other state agencies available.

The counsel insisted that the AG appeared to be proceeding with an erroneous construction of the court’s instructions in as much he had purported to require from the NAB chief to submit fortnightly reports on the investigation.

The court decided to issue notices to the respondents with a direction to submit concise statements against the contention raised in the review petition.

Referring to the objections raised by Zahid Bokhari, the court said firstly it was for the court to decide about the listing of cases and not for the counsel to assume this role. Secondly, the court explained, that its office had put up a note before Justice Khwaja regarding the review petition because he was presiding over the special bench hearing cases relating to Bahria Town after the chief justice had recused himself from it.

“It is for this obvious reason that this review petition was fixed for Tuesday. Therefore, the contention of Zahid Bokhari is entirely misconceived,” the court said, although it added that it had been noted and addressed.

In his review petition, Dr Arsalan contended that there was no provision in the NAB ordinance under which the authorities could take cognizance of matters such as the allegations levelled in the instant case. He said he had also failed to find a single provision which could authorise the NAB chairman to constitute a JIT and select its members on his own choice, without any sanctity of law.—Nasir Iqbal