Islamabad, Nov 12: The Supreme Court (SC) of Pakistan is likely to resume hearing the petitions challenging the candidacy of President General Pervez Musharraf for the presidential election on Wednesday.

Pakistan’s Attorney General Malik Qayyum said this and expressed the hope that the case would be decided by the weekend.

An 11-member bench of the apex court had been hearing the case before the proclamation of the Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO) in November 3.

Qayyum said that two more high court judges would take oath as Supreme Court judges on Tuesday under the PCO, while another one, whose name is yet to be finalised, would follow suit by the weekend.

The Daily Times quoted him as saying that the judges who would take oaths were Sindh High Court’s Justice Zia Pervez and Lahore High Court’s Justice Akhtar Shabbir. Chief Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar would administer the oath.

Qayyum asserted that the elevation of the two judges to the SC was based purely on merit.

He went on to say that the government would soon amend the Legal Practitioners and Bar Councils Act of 1973. This will be done in the wake of the threats given by the Pakistan Bar Council and other bar associations that memberships of the lawyers appearing before judges sworn in after the PCO would be cancelled. (ANI)