Pakistani Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, while declaring illegal the emergency Musharraf had declared Nov 3, 2007, had on July 31 also invalidated the NRO.

Chaudhry had revoked the ordinance soon after it was promulgated but was dismissed after Musharraf declared the emergency. His successor, Abdul Hameed Dogar, revived the NRO in February 2008.

Chaudhry, who was reinstated in March after a bruising lawyers' agitation, ruled July 31 that Dogar's appointment was unconstitutional and invalidated all his rulings.

Chaudhry has also given the government 90 days, as of July 31, to pass the NRO into law or allow it to lapse.

But, as The News noted Aug 1, 'the real question is not about what happens on this front but whether the benefits taken under NRO are legal in nature; are they transactions that shall be treated as past and closed transactions even if the ordinance is allowed to lapse or will they become alive once the ordinance dies?'

Interestingly, among the others who benefited from the NRO are Interior Minister Rehman Malik, Maulana Fazlur Rehman of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam that is a junior partner in the ruling federal coalition, former prime minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali and a host of retired army generals.