ISLAMABAD, 31 October 2007 — Pakistan’s Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry reaffirmed yesterday an earlier Supreme Court ruling that former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif be allowed to return from exile, despite resistance from the government.

Chaudhry made the observation while adjourning until Nov. 8 a contempt hearing against the government for blocking the former prime minister’s attempted comeback last month.

Sharif, whom President Gen. Pervez Musharraf ousted in a bloodless 1999 coup and later sent into exile, was blocked for several hours on his arrival at the international airport at Rawalpindi, the city next door to Islamabad, on Sept.10.

He was put on a flight to Saudi Arabia a few hours later.

“We find it appropriate to adjourn the case until Nov. 8. But we would like to emphasize that the judgment passed in Nawaz Sharif’s case is still holding the field and required to be implemented in letter and spirit,” Chaudhry said.

Several hundred supporters of Sharif’s faction of the Pakistan Muslim League staged a protest outside the court.

A spokesman for Sharif, Ahsan Iqbal, said the party leaders will meet this week to discuss when he can return.

“He (Sharif) is aiming to return in late November,” Iqbal said.

Earlier the court was told that Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz told the Foreign Ministry to arrange Sharif’s deportation flight.

“By Sept. 6, arrangements were being made to violate the order of this court ... by the prime minister of Pakistan,” Justice Chaudhry said after hearing a statement from two senior officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and testimony from the chairman of Pakistan International Airlines.

After his deportation, Sharif’s party filed a petition in the Supreme Court seeking contempt of court proceedings against Aziz and more than a dozen top government officials for allegedly violating the Aug. 23 ruling that said the former premier had an “inalienable” right to return home.

Aziz’s lawyer read the ministry officials’ statement to the court. It said Aziz had given “verbal instructions” to the ministry to organize a “VVIP flight.” Zafar A. Khan, chairman of Pakistan International Airlines, told the court the airline received a request on Sept. 6 for the flight and for two sets of crews.

The testimony and statement did not mention who the VVIP was, or the date of the flight.

Outside the court, Attorney General Malik Mohammad Qayyum said Aziz has not denied that he asked for the plane, but that he has said he was not aware who sent Sharif out of the country. Qayyum did not elaborate. At the hearing, Fakhruddin G. Ibrahim, a lawyer for Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-N party, said the Supreme Court should rule that Sharif should be allowed to return home.

Another Supreme Court bench headed by Justice Javed Iqbal reserved its judgment over the validity of Musharraf’s election as president.