‘No judge will be restored’

(Courtesy The Daily Times)

LAHORE: Presidential spokesman Rashid Qureshi on Friday denied reports that the president had offered a conditional restoration of judges sacked on November 3 to Pakistan People’s Party Co-chairman Asif Zardari, according to Geo News. No sacked judges would be restored, he told Geo News, and the procedure for the reinstatement of judges was laid down in the Constitution. Qureshi told PTV that President Pervez Musharraf had been elected for five years and was ready to work with the new government. He said the president had no plans to resign. He said rumours of the president’s plan to resign were part of a “planned campaign” in the Pakistani media and were “totally baseless and unfounded”. Only Nawaz Sharif and “the so-called civil society consisting of 100 or 200 people” wanted the president to resign. “In fact, the whole world is praising the president for holding free, fair transparent and peaceful elections in Pakistan,” the spokesman said.