Reserved seats case
ISLAMABAD
Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail has issued his detailed dissent note on the reserved seats case, finding that the ruling concerning 41 candidates exceeded constitutional limits and relied on factual errors. “The judgment under review, to this extent, is in excess of the power granted to the Supreme Court by Article 187,” he wrote in the dissenting note released a day ago.
Justice Mandokhail had served on the now-defunct Constitutional Bench, which ended after the 27th Constitutional Amendment, which overturned the top court’s decision, by a majority of seven judges, granting Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) reserved seats.
The apex court stressed that all 41 candidates were independent when they joined the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) under constitutional provisions, and their status had never been a pending matter before the Court.
He observed that neither any authority nor the court has the power to change the status of any candidate.
“We have already held that no authority including the Court has the power to declare a candidate independent or change his status contrary to his declaration,” he wrote.
The jurist declared that granting the candidates 15 days to join another party was both unconstitutional and unsupported by the record. “This relief is an error of the Constitution and law, as well as an error of facts floating on the surface of the record,” the dissent stated.
The judge also argued that Article 187 does not grant “unlimited powers”, adding that complete justice applies only to matters actually under adjudication. He warned that reclassifying the 41 members as independents amounted to judicial overreach.
