London, June 7 :     The British foreign office in London made it clear today that a change of Pakistani high commissioner in London would not reduce the United Kingdom's refusal to accept the military regime of Pervez Musharraf as legitimate. The British response came after it was confirmed that Professor Akbar Ahmed, 56, was abruptly sacked on Monday as Pakistani high commissioner in London after only seven months in the job. No reason was given for the dismissal. A spokesman for the British foreign office said: 'Change of high commissioner is a matter for the Pakistani authorities. We have been informed.' Prof. Ahmed's dismissal was also confirmed by an official at the Pakistani high commission in London but he refused to give any other details. Javed Iqbal, a career diplomat who is due to go to Beirut as his country's ambassador, has taken over as acting high commissioner in London, the official added. After last October's coup, Prof. Ahmed surprised his friends and acquaintances by leaving his comfortable job as an academic based in Cambridge by taking on a high-profile diplomatic assignment in London. He said he had been telephoned out of the blue by Musharraf, whom he had met only twice before. Prof. Ahmed is best known in Britain as the man who conceived the idea of making a feature film on Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan. When Jeremy Irons, his first choice, turned down the lead role, he cast Christopher Lee, the actor famous for his role as Dracula in horror movies. Jinnah, which Prof. Ahmed conceived as an answer to Attenborough's Gandhi, opened in Pakistan last Saturday in Pakistan and has been well received. Unfortunately for Prof. Ahmed, his accession to the high commissioner's job coincided with the controversy over the financing of Jinnah, which was made with a budget of £ 3 million. He fell out with the film's director, Jamil Dehlavi, who accused him of siphoning funds from the project into an off-shore account. It was also an embarrassment when it was revealed that an Indian, Farrukh Dhondy, the former commissioning editor for multi-cultural programmes at Channel 4, had helped to write the screenplay for a fee of £ 12,000. Prof Ahmed has strenuously denied misusing the funds. However, getting embroiled in a dispute with Dehlavi meant he had less time to devote to Musharraf's mission. Although Musharraf had probably brought Prof. Ahmed in an effort to win greater acceptance for his military regime, the high commissioner was not able to make the British government view the coup leader in a more sympathetic light. A dissatisfied Musharraf may have used the growing controversy over Prof. Ahmed's financial handling of the film as a pretext to remove him. Spelling out the British government's position, the Foreign Office spokesman said: 'There must be a clear and early return to democracy. We cannot agree with the Pakistani Supreme Court that the coup is legitimate. Pakistan remains suspended from the councils of the Commonwealth.'