Islamabad, Mar 25: Syed Yousaf Gillani was sworn in as Pakistan`s 25th Prime Minister by President Pervez Musharraf on Tuesday, a day after challenging the US-backed leader`s authority by freeing judges detained under Emergency Rule.

There are unconfirmed reports stating that Gillani might order the removal of Pakistan's Attorney General Malik Qayyum. In November last year, the Lahore High Court Bar Association had cancelled Qayyum's membership and dared him to come and sit in the bar. Holding Qayyum responsible for amending the legal practitioners and Bar Councils Act to allow the Supreme Court to take action against lawyers, the association passed had passed this resolution unanimously.

The coalition, led by Bhutto`s Pakistan People`s Party and including the party of former Premier Nawaz Sharif and two smaller groupings, has vowed within 30 days to pass legislation reinstating the judges sacked under the Musharraf regime.

But the president of Pakistan's Supreme Court Bar Association Aitzaz Ahsan clarified that there was no need for such an amendment to reinstate sacked judges including Chief Justice Iftikaar Chaudhary. This was because in any case the decree issued for their removal was in effect anti-constitution and was the result of the dictates of one man i.e. President Musharrf. Therefore, he added, the PPP and the PML-N need just to call the judges back to their offices.

Gillani, a senior member of the party of slain opposition icon Benazir Bhutto, was elected as Premier yesterday by the Lower House of Parliament where an anti-Musharraf coalition now holds sway.

Minutes later Gillani ordered the release of deposed Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and other judges, who have been held since Musharraf sacked them in November amid fears they could weaken his grip on power.

Gillani had himself spent five years in jail under Musharraf`s government from 2001 to 2006.

Pakistanis will now be watching to see how strongly the coalition government that won elections in February confronts Musharraf, a key ally in the US-led "war on terror" who seized power in a military coup in 1999.

Meanwhile, speculations are rife on what fate has in store for President Pervez Musharraf now that the Chief Justice who was sacked by him has been reinstated by the new Prime Minister.

In an apparent snub to the increasingly isolated Musharraf, Bhutto`s widower, Asif Ali Zardari, and their son, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, who together lead her party, declined to attend the ceremony at the Presidency.