One of Pakistan's three deputy attorneys general, Nasir Saeed Sheikh, resigned citing crisis over efforts to sack the country's top judge.
ISLAMABAD: A Pakistani deputy attorney general resigned on Tuesday in protest at President Pervez Musharraf's removal of the chief justice, as a hearing into the deepening crisis was delayed by two weeks.
Musharraf suspended top judge Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry on March 9, sparking protests and plunging Pakistan into the most bitter political row since he seized power in a military coup in 1999.
Nasir Saeed Sheikh, one of three deputy attorney generals in Pakistan, became on Tuesday the most senior state lawyer to quit amid a wave of resignations in the judiciary.
"Yes I have resigned," Sheikh said.
"Under the prevailing constitutional position it is not possible for me to work."
Separately Javed Memon, a senior civil judge in the town of Kotri in southern Sindh province also resigned in protest, a Sindh High Court official said on condition of anonymity. He is the eighth judge to stand down over the controversy.
Five judges resigned in Sindh on Monday, as well as a high court judge in central Punjab province. A civil judge in the central Pakistani city of Bahawalpur and a public prosecutor said they were quitting last week.
Chaudhry was due to make his third appearance before the Supreme Judicial Council, a panel of senior charges, on unspecified misconduct charges on Wednesday, but the hearing was postponed at the last minute until April 3. The panel did not give a reason.
But lawyers and hardline Islamic parties had pledged to hold nationwide protests on Wednesday, arousing suspicions that the hearing was delayed in a bid to cool the situation.
"The adjournment of the hearing is aimed at sabotaging our movement," Munir A.Malik, a junior counsel for the suspended chief justice, told reporters.
He said lawyers would boycott courts across the country on Wednesday and hold protest rallies. Chaudhry's previous appearances before the council have been marred by protests, including violent clashes in Islamabad on Friday when police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters.
The suspended chief justice's senior counsel said on Tuesday he intended to move an application before the council, when it sits again, to call Musharraf as a witness.
"I will take the final decision after consulting Justice Chaudhry, but I want to cross-examine the president for his remarks about my client," counsel Aitzaz Ahsan said.
Musharraf defended his decision to remove Chaudhry in an interview late Monday and said he would not impose a state of emergency over the growing unrest, or delay elections due later this year or early next.
"There is no emergency situation and emergency will not be declared," Musharraf told private Geo television.
However Ahsan said that Musharraf could easily change his mind. "Musharraf changes his views overnight. If he can suspend the chief justice he can also impose the emergency," Ahsan said.
The European Union troika later said it had expressed "some concerns" over the suspension of the chief justice, freedom of the media and expression and civil liberties during a meeting with Pakistani foreign ministry officials.
Pakistan rejected the comments, saying in a statement that it was "highly inappropriate" to comment on the case. It added that the EU's concerns were "out of place".
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