Pakistan's Supreme Court has suspended the notification of the career tenure extension of the country's Army Chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa until a hearing on Wednesday. The court has also issued notices to all parties, including Gen. Bajwa, who is due to retire on November 29.
In a major turnaround of the event, the Supreme Court on Tuesday converted the petition against the Army Chief's extension into a suo-motu - and ordered the suspension of the notification that Imran Khan government had issued on 19 August. The court found that the notification had been favoured by only 11 members of the 25-member cabinet, therefore, prima facie; this extension is not endorsed by the majority of the cabinet members.
Chief Justice of Pakistan Asif Saeed Khosa said that "apparently the summary and approval of the army chief's extension is not correct".
General Bajwa’s second term as army chief also commences on November 29 and he will keep the command of the army until November 2022. A career infantry officer belonging to the Baloch Regiment and General Bajwa was appointed as Army CHief in November 2016 for three years by the then-prime minister Nawaz Sharif.
Meanwhile, the decision spooked the stock market and it fell over 500 points.
