LAHORE: A day after the ruling coalition announced to boycott proceedings in the ongoing case against the election of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) vice president Hamza Shehbaz as chief minister, the counsel for Punjab Assembly deputy speaker informed the Supreme Court on Tuesday his client had instructed him not to participate further in the proceedings as he would instead file a petition for review of the decision not to constitute a full bench.
Farooq Naek, the counsel for Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), also declined to participate in the court proceedings. However, he and Irfan Qadir both stayed in the courtroom and watched the proceedings.
The hearing commenced shortly after 11:30 am. The Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) had earlier said it would boycott the proceedings in protest. Lawyers for both sides had arrived in court earlier.
Shehbaz was elected the chief minister of Punjab last week after Dost Muhammad Mazari, the deputy speaker, rejected 10 votes cast by the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q), citing a Supreme Court ruling that had stated votes cast against party instructions should be rejected.
A three-judge bench — led by Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial, and comprising Justice Ijaz ul-Ahsan and Justice Munib Akhtar — has been hearing arguments on the case, with the PDM parties demanding a full court bench be formed to conclusively decide all cases linked to Article 63-A, pertaining to the defection of lawmakers.
On Monday, after daylong hearings, the court rejected the plea for a full court bench, saying the case would continue to be heard by the three-member bench led by Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial.
Today, Justice Bandial then extended an open invitation to all the parties to assist the court in reaching a fair and just decision in the case.
“Assist the court over the legal questions or we will set ourselves aside from the bench,” he told Barrister Ali Zafar, the counsel of Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, the joint candidate of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) and PML-Q, for the office of the chief minister.
“People sitting on my right side have unanimously decided to boycott the proceedings of the court,” he said, adding that thankfully, they have enough grace to sit in court to hear the proceedings.
Giving his arguments in the case, Zafar said that the petitions against the 21st Amendment were dismissed by a ratio of 13:4 in a full court.
However, many judges gave different reasons for dismissing the petitions, he added.
Zafar told the court that the constitution mentions that the parliamentary party will give directions to the lawmakers about voting.
At this, the judge questioned whether the party head and parliamentary party were two separate entities. Zafar said they were indeed two separate entities.
More details to follow
