Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Umar Ata Bandial on Monday once again ruled out the formation of a full court to hear PTI’s petition against the Election Commission of Pakistan’s decision to postpone elections to the Punjab Assembly till Oct 8 and suggested that the government could instead request for a larger bench to hear the case.
He said he had discussed the matter with senior apex court judges in the past few days.
Justice Bandial passed these remarks as a diminished SC bench — comprising the CJP, Justice Ijazul Ahsan and Justice Munib Akhtar — took up the PTI petition.
Ahead of the crucial hearing today, the government submitted a statement through the Attorney General of Pakistan Mansoor Awan in SC, requesting the formation of a full court to hear the case.
It also sought the dismissal of the PTI petition in the light of what it interpreted as a “4-3” order issued by the apex court on March 1.
The apex court, had in a 3-2 verdict, ruled on March 1 that elections in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab — both of which have been under caretaker governments since the provincial assemblies were dissolved in January — should be held within 90 days.
The government, however, had disputed with the court directions, calling the verdict 4-3 instead after Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail and Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah — who were among the four judges who had written additional notes in the Feb 23 order — raised objections on the constitution of the bench as well as the invocation of the apex court’s suo motu jurisdiction by the chief justice.
In its “concise statement” submitted before the court, the government sought to “object to the maintainability and hearing of the petition for being based on misreading and mistaken understanding of the March 1 order”.
The statement insisted: “In order to ascertain the true import of the March 1 judgment, it is imperative that the chronology of events leading up to that day must be taken into consideration.”
It also said the president’s announcement for Punjab polls on April 30 was “under a mistaken reading of the same judgment”.
The government also requested the current bench to recuse itself from the case and instead a new full court be formed to take up the case.
