The government has begun the process for lodging a high treason case against former president Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf, Deputy Attorney General Iftikhar Shahid told the Lahore High Court on Thursday.

Being authorised to register a high treason case, the interior secretary had been appointed as complaint officer, he said during the hearing of a petition seeking registration of the case against the former dictator for subverting the Constitution twice and ousting an elected government.He said the secretary had been given the power through a notification issued in 1994.

Advocate Rana Jamil, the petitioner, had argued that all unconstitutional acts of Gen (retd) Musharraf fell within the ambit of high treason. Therefore, the government should be asked to lodge the case under Article 6 of the Constitution.The law officer urged the court to dismiss the petition, saying the grievance of the petitioner had been addressedJustice Kazim Raza Shamsi, however, postponed the hearing till a date to be fixed by the registrar’s office.