Pakistan’s top judge was on Friday restored to office in a significant blow to Gen. Pervez Musharraf, four months after the government suspended him in an unprecedented clash between the judiciary and the US-backed military regime.

”The reference has been set aside and the chief justice has been reinstated,” said Justice Khalil ur Rehman Ramday. A 13-member bench spent over two months hearing a case that transfixed Pakistan and gave birth to a nascent civil society.