The Constitutional Bank (CB) ordered the transfer of pending appeals with respect to the super tax in the courts higher than the Supreme Court.
A Constitutional Bank of five members, led by Judge Amin-Din Khan, heard the case related to the super taxes, where the lawyers stressed that the appeals were pending in the superior courts of Lahore and Islamabad.
The lawyer of private companies, Makhdoom Ali Khan, informed the Court that the Supreme Court has the constitutional authority to transfer cases pending to itself. He explained that after the constitutional amendment, the power to transfer cases has been described clearly.
Judge Muhammad Ali Mazhar asked if a written request for the transfer of cases would be required, to which the lawyer replied that an oral request of the court could even be considered. In addition, he added that, in his opinion, the Court could also transfer the cases exercising its Swingu powers.
Case transfer would be examined in the light of article 187.
Makhdoom Ali Khan emphasized that the government cannot directly impose super taxes. Any tax must be justified, and there must be exceptional circumstances to impose super taxes. He also noted that in multiple rulings, the Supreme Court has declared that additional taxes are illegal, and pointed out that imposing such taxes violates fundamental rights.
After the hearing, the Constitutional Bank ordered the transfer of the pending appeals related to the super tax of the Superior Courts of Islamabad and Lahore to the Supreme Court and postponed the hearing until tomorrow.
Previously, on Monday a constitutional bank of the appeals of the Apex Court Court against a Super Prosecutor imposed following a military operation was reconstituted on Monday after one of the members of the bank, Judge Aamer Faooq, who had heard the case as judge of the Superior Court was challenged.
A CB of five members led by Judge Aminuddin Khan took the appeals presented by several organizations and individuals against a SuperTax that the PML-N government had imposed in 2015 to generate funds for the accommodation of the displaced persons internally due to the ZARB-E-AZB operation.
At first, Judge Khan said that a bank member, Judge Aamer Fararoq, had heard the case as judge of the Superior Court of Islamabad (IHC) and, therefore, the CB would have to be reconstituted.
During the hearing, the CB rejected a request to defer the hearing until after Ramazan and declared that the case would be heard daily.
