In Pakistan, we used to have soaps for this purpose until late 90s. Now, we have National Reconciliation Ordinance.

The notorious NRO turned out to be a true detergent for the “purest’ of the Land of Pure, which cleaned the filth of corruption and dishonesty from their persons and returned them their white collars. For long, the names of such people were kept hidden. But Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani soon realised that he was, is, and can never be another version of the Shaukat Aziz brand and this realisation was perhaps further strengthened by the awakening conscience of the patriots of this nation. Hence, the conflicts between the PM and President Houses arose from the depth of the ocean of Pakistani politics and surfaced in the form of this much dreaded list of the benefactors of NRO. Since the unveiling of this masterpiece, the hue and cry of “Article number this does not allow anyone to do a lawsuit on President” and “The removed cases were always unproven” can be heard from the President’s Ministry of Defense.

When this mayhem started, a very dear friend of mine had dinner with his old class-fellow and friend, a leading lawyer of Supreme court, an ex-President SC Bar Association and the soul of the Lawyers’ movement. The story of this dinner is really interesting since it ended up in a bet that holds the future of Mr Pakistani President. The lawyer, ofcourse confidentially,told this friend of mine about the disqualification of Mr Pakistani President through Supreme Court in the near future. My friend had a good laugh , and placed a bet of Rs.50,000 as he was too sure of the opposite. A few days later, the list of NRO benefactors came under public scrutiny, and the debate which followed made my friend quite happy since it became obvious there was, and still is, no chance of SC disqualifying Mr Pakistani President. While this “fact” could wipe the smiles off so many lips, my friend could easily make 50k out of it. Happily, my friend approached the lawyer, and in response to his apparent delight, the lawyer only smiled and said, “Double the money. Let’s make it 100k now, and I bet SC will disqualify the President soon.”          

My friend did not believe it and this he communicated to me some weeks ago with a “Lawyers are liars” remark. However, yesterday when my friend found out that the lawyer had doubled the bet money twice over, my friend had to ask how on earth could the Supreme Court of Pakistan disqualify the President.

“The plan is simple,” he was told , “the CJP will first disqualify the president, declaring him illegible to rule as the Presdient of Pakistan through some common “court tactics” which are not even known to the President House and his Defense Ministry, and then further hearings which take forever will continue to proceed.”

I cannot help but feel pity for my friend as I have a strong feeling that sooner or later, the lawyer will double the bet-money further and in the end my friend will lose it. CJP has a very strong support on his back; a very good friend who had practically restored Judiciary and will help SC by any means possible to remove Mr Pakistani President. If anyone is interested in knowing the name of this great support, please check the front page of Pakistani newspapers.

I wish I could make my friend understand that lawyers, although liars, never lie to lose money!!