Pakistan army chief Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa on Thursday got a six-month conditional extension from the Supreme Court.

Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, who headed a three-member bench, announced the landmark verdict after being given an assurance from the government that parliament will pass a legislation on the extension or reappointment of an army chief within six months.

“The current appointment of General Qamar Javed Bajwa as Chief of the Army Staff shall be subject to the said legislation and shall continue for a period of six months from today, whereafter the new legislation shall determine his tenure and other terms and conditions of service,” the bench said in its short order.

It pointed out that in the three days of court proceedings, the government kept changing its stance, from “referring to it as reappointment, limiting of retirement to extension of tenure”.

The verdict was announced after the government submitted a “new summary” to extend the tenure of 59-year-old Bajwa. The ruling comes before Bajwa was to retire at midnight on Thursday.

A much-relieved Prime Minister Imran Khan lauded the apex court after the ruling even as he took a jibe at the country’s “external enemies” and the “mafia within”.

Khan had extended Bajwa’s tenure through a notification on August 19; but the apex court suspended it on Tuesday, citing irregularities in the manner the army chief, a close confidant of the Prime Minister, was granted an extension. “Today must be a great disappointment to those who expected the country to be destabilised by a clash of institutions,” Khan tweeted.

“That this did not happen must be of special disappointment to our external enemies & mafias within,” Khan said, without identifying them.

Delivering the verdict, Chief Justice Khosa directed the government to bring necessary legislation within six months.

He said the court observed “judicial restraint” and left the matter to the parliament.

“We have reviewed several laws including Army Act 1952 and Rule 1954 before announcing the judgment,” he said.

Earlier, when the hearing restarted, attorney-general Anwar Mansoor Khan told the court that the government had made a fresh appointment of Bajwa as army chief under Article 243 of the Constitution.

However, the court questioned how the fresh appointment was different from the previous one. The bench asked the government to produce the documents related to the extension former army chief Gen. Ashfaq Pervaiz Kayani and those related to the retirement of Gen. Raheel Sharif.

As the documents were not readily available, the court suspended the proceedings for 15 minutes. When the hearing resumed, the relevant document were presented. But even those papers failed to answer the basic question that under which law the government was giving extension to the army chief for three years.

It turned out that there was no law on the issue of extension and reappointment of a sitting army chief for three years. Khosa asked if the government was ready to formulate laws in the specific period.

Attorney-general Khan said the government can enact laws in three months. It prompted the court to offer that it can grant extension for three months to the army chief. However, Bajwa’s lawyer, who resigned from his post as law minister on Tuesday to pursue the case, said the government will make laws in six months. Khosa finally ordered that the government should come up with the new summary in six months.