Govt asks SC to extend deadline to comply with GB verdict.

Byline: Nasir Iqbal

ISLAMABAD -- The federal government has again sought time from the Supreme Court for implementing its Jan 17 verdict on grant of rights to the people of Gilgit-Baltistan (GB).

The government had also asked for time during an earlier hearing in May, but Additional Attorney General Sajid Ilyas Bhatti told a seven-judge Supreme Court bench, headed by Acting Chief Justice Gulzar Ahmed, on Thursday that the matter was still under deliberation in the National Security Committee.

The acting chief justice cautioned the federal government to keep itself abreast of developments in the region and try to resolve the issue as early as possible lest some inimical forces take advantage of the situation.

The Supreme Court had taken up a case moved by the federal government through the Kashmir Affairs and Northern Areas Division seeking an extension in the deadline to comply with the Jan 17 judgement in which the Supreme Court had accorded approval to a freshly proposed presidential order enshrining a framework for governance in Gilgit-Baltistan.

The order required the government to carry out legislation for reforms in the province by tabling a bill in parliament.

One of the proposed amendments in the reforms is that the chief judge of the GB Supreme Appellate Court should nominate a judge for the court instead of the chief...