Islamabad:
A Constitutional Bank of 11 members (CB) of the Supreme Court, headed by Judge Aminuddin Khan, posted on Wednesday questions about the Pakistan Tehreek-E-Insaf (PTI) that became part of the case of review of the reserved seats.
Judge Shahid Bilal Hassan told Salman Akram Raja, the lawyer of the leader of PTI Kanwal Shauzab, who had joined the procedures of the main case in the Apex court as intervening, because the PTI was not the party in the case or a defendant.
Previously, in his arguments, Raja presented the history of the case before the court. About that, Judge Khan said that the bank had a decision before it should be reviewed. He asked Raja to keep his arguments to that decision.
Raja said that the deviation of the Constitution began on December 22, 2023, when the Pakistan Electoral Commission made its decision against the intrapartite elections of the PTI. On January 13, the Supreme Court confirmed the ECP decision, he said.
After that decision, he continued, some people presented nomination documents in the general elections as independent candidates, because they feared that their documents could be rejected. He cited his own example that he presented the PTI ticket, but the ECP returned it and declared it independent.
He also cited the example of the allocation of seats reserved to the Baluchistan Awami (BAP) party after the 2018 elections. On that, Judge Khan raised the question if the BAP won the seats, so the Sunita Ittehad (sic) council should also obtain the seats.
Raja replied that he was only defending the decision of the Apex Court of July 12, 2024, adding that his point was to inform the court about the circumstances that led the independent legislators backed by PTI to join the SIC.
Judge Commandkhail commented that there were six people from the PTI in Parliament. Judge Khan asked Raja if those six people looked for the reserved ECP seats. Raja replied that the ECP did not consider them as PTI legislators.
Raja said there was a slight difference between the majority decision of eight judges and the dissident notes of two judges. He added that Judge Muhammad Ali Mazhar and Judge Hassan Azhar Rizvi were among the eight judges that analyzed the facts from a broader perspective, while Judge Commandkhel and the former president of Justice, Qazi Fareez Isa, analyzed the facts from a less broad perspective.
Judge Shahid Bilal Hassan told Raja that it was not part of the main case, rather he joined the judicial procedures as intervening, that it was not a part or a judicial officer. The judge added that the slit request to become part of the case was never approved.
It seemed, Judge Hassan said, the court was listening to Raja for courtesy. The judge asked Raja if he was presenting arguments about the merits of the case. Raja replied that he would answer these questions. The audience was postponed until Thursday.
In a previous hearing held on May 27, the main lawyer Makhdoom Ali Khan had informed the Constitutional Bank (CB) of the Supreme Court that article 187 of the Constitution, the basis of the majority judgment of July 12, 2024, which granted relief to the PTI in the case of the reserved seats, does not empower the Court to grant a part that was not before.
