KARACHI, Aug 8 Former president of the Supreme Court Bar Association Aitzaz Ahsan said on Saturday that in its landmark verdict the SC had declared the Nov 3, 2007 actions as illegal, and now it was up to the government to prosecute the then army chief, retired general Pervez Musharraf, under Article 6 of the Constitution for violating it.

He added that the SC could not try Gen Musharraf as it was not a trial court. It could only decide whether his Nov 3 steps were constitutional.

Speaking at a general body meeting of the Karachi Bar Association held in the Shuhada-i-Punjab Hall of the City Courts, he praised the legal fraternity of the city for playing an important role and rendering sacrifices during the lawyers' movement.

Defending the impartiality of the 14-member bench of the SC that handed down the historic decision on July 31, the former SCBA chief said that though the Nov 3 steps had affected all judges of the bench, they did not lodge any case against Gen Musharraf and his associates for unlawfully detaining them with their children for around five months. Hence their neutrality could not be questioned.

Appreciating the role of the media during the lawyers' struggle, he condemned the recent attacks on journalists on the premises of the Lahore High Court and a sessions court.

Without naming any individual or group, he said those leaders and people who had forcibly restricted Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry's movement to Karachi airport, opposed his reinstatement and allegedly planned the May 12 and April 9 mayhems, had also accepted him as the chief justice of the country.

Mr Ahsan, who led a panel of lawyers that successfully defended Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry before a 13-member bench of the Supreme Court against his dismissal by the then president in 2007, said that nobody was ready to raise his voice against the military dictator, but it was the legal community which put up great resistance against Gen Musharraf and forced him to doff his uniform, and allowed the exiled political leaders to return to the country.

The president of the Karachi Bar Association, Mohammad Ali Abbassi, and the general secretary, Naeem Qureshi, also condemned the lawyers' assaults on journalists, and said some black sheep were out to malign the legal community.