A seven-member bench led by Chief Justice Saiduzzaman Siddiqui, disposing of Bhutto's petition challenging dismissal of her government, said the court would clarify the judgement passed earlier by another bench upholding the dismissal of the government, The Dawn newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Hearing the arguments during the proceedings, the court said, "The observations made in the judgement were restricted to those proceedings and they did not amount to conclusive findings of guilt on the basis of allegations", Dawn said.

However, the court expressed its "inability" to restore the government with the Chief Justice commenting, "We cannot restore the Assembly after such a lapse of time. However, we would clarify the findingsgiven in the judgement."

Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples' Party government was dismissed by the then President Farooq Leghari on charges of corruption and growing law and order problem in the country midway through its term in November 1996.

Earlier also, she had challenged the dismissal but a Supreme Court bench headed by the then Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah had upheld the decision by a split 6-1 verdict while considering newspaper clippings as valid piece of evidence against the her government.

Bhutto's counsel Aitzaz Ahsan, while arguing before the court, expressed apprehensions that the findings and observations made in the previous judgement might be used as proof for "any other purpose whatsoever".

The Chief Justice observed that these apprehensions were not totally unfounded even though Attorney General Choudhury Mohammad Farooq argued that the pending corruption cases against Bhutto in different courts had no relevance after the Supreme Court judgement.