The messiahs don’t retire, take pension and go on infinite vacations. Whether they are accidental saviors or obtained that status by self-declaration, the messiahs take it upon themselves as some divine responsibility to keep showing guidance to the mere-mortals like us, no matter what their status is. The grandeur syndrome never stops for them. Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry has elevated himself to holy seraphic position. After removing two Prime Minister of PPP, he has the current regime of PML-N on the run for months now. With missing person case, he also has asserted his power over the security forces, and dressing down the bureaucrats is his favorite pastime. He will retire in few hours, but will he be inactive then? Will he also take his legacy from the court room no. 1 with him?
In order to find that answer, we need to see what was the end result of Iftikhar Chaudhry’s activism? What has he achieved? Sadly enough, the process was media sensation but the end result is zilch. He failed to punish any big shot for corruption, he failed to punish dictator Musharraf, and he failed to come up with some vivid decision on any big case. His biggest failure is to not to ensure a speedy, cheap and fair justice from lower and middle courts. Even thousands of cases are languishing in the Supreme Court. Another huge blot on his sleeve was his nepotism. He had double standards for others and for his family members. His son Arsalan Iftikhar was as guilty as sunlight. People had proof of his corruption, his vacations with family in London paid by Malik Riaz, his fake receipts of petrol, his usage of Chief Justice house as business center and so on. Despite of very strong case, CJP ignored and safeguarded his own corrupt son.
Iftikhar Chaudhry played to the gallery more than he acted according to the tunes of constitution. There are numerous examples where he literally blessed some of the journalists and took suo moto notices of their news. It is open knowledge that he himself asked Ansar Abbasi, the editor at The News to print some news so that he could take notice of it. Iftikhar Chaudhry made sure to keep media his buddy, while maintaining a specific faction of lawyers as his private army. He will also be using these two as his levers in the upcoming days. By taking inspiration from the Aam Aadmi party in India, the king makers have already contacted Iftikhar Chaudhry and ironically these king makers are the same whose cases were in CJP’s courts. This king makers have become very disappointed with Imran Khan, Sheikh Rashid and Dr. Tahir ul Qadri, and that is why they will be putting their money on CJP now.