Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Umar Ata Bandial on Monday once again ruled out the formation of a full court to hear PTI\u2019s petition against the Election Commission of Pakistan\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
He said he had discussed the matter with senior apex court judges in the past few days.<\/p>\n
Justice Bandial passed these remarks as a diminished SC bench \u2014 comprising the CJP, Justice Ijazul Ahsan and Justice Munib Akhtar \u2014 took up the PTI petition.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
It also sought the dismissal of the PTI petition in the light of what it interpreted as a \u201c4-3\u201d order issued by the apex court on March 1.<\/p>\n
The apex court, had in a 3-2 verdict, ruled on March 1 that elections in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab \u2014 both of which have been under caretaker governments since the provincial assemblies were dissolved in January \u2014 should be held within 90 days.<\/p>\n
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 \u2014 who were among the four judges who had written additional notes in the Feb 23 order \u2014 raised objections on the constitution of the bench as well as the invocation of the apex court\u2019s suo motu jurisdiction by the chief justice.<\/p>\n
In its \u201cconcise statement\u201d submitted before the court, the government sought to \u201cobject to the maintainability and hearing of the petition for being based on misreading and mistaken understanding of the March 1 order\u201d.<\/p>\n
The statement insisted: \u201cIn 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
It also said the president\u2019s announcement for Punjab polls on April 30 was \u201cunder a mistaken reading of the same judgment\u201d.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Umar Ata Bandial on Monday once again ruled out the formation of a full court to hear PTI\u2019s petition against the Election Commission of Pakistan\u2019s 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323498,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-323497","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-news"},"yoast_head":"\n