ISLAMABAD: Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Umar Atta Bandial has approached his fellow judges to end the division in the Supreme Court as the Supreme Court verdict on the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) election delay case. A dispute has arisen regarding Deeper continues.
Fellow judges, the government and the KP Bar Council have raised questions over the chief justice’s “controversial” role following the Supreme Court verdict in which Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif and other politicians have asked the top judge to resign from his post.
According to sources, Chief Justice Bandial started the fencing process last week which continued on Sunday. Sources added that top judges are holding separate meetings with Supreme Court judges to iron out differences between them.
Sources further say that the Chief Justice constituted the benches for the next week to end the impression of differences and create consensus among the judges.
The Chief Justice has included in his bench the judges who had given a dissenting note in the Punjab election case. Thus, Justice Yahya Afridi and Justice Athar Minullah will be part of the Chief Justice Bench starting from Monday.
Justice Qazi Faiz Isa and Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar will also be part of the second bench. Besides, Justice Mansoor Ali Shah and Justice Ayesha Malik are also included in the bench.
Justice Minullah will join the bench comprising of Justice Muneeb Akhtar and Justice Mazahir Ali Akbar Naqvi while a bench comprising of Justice Jamal Khan Mandukhel and Justice Hasan Azhar Rizvi has also been constituted.
Justice Minallah’s order
A major development took place last week when a Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice Bandial set aside the decision of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to postpone the elections till October and ordered snap polling to be held in Punjab on May 14. .
A few days later, however, Justice Minullah, in his detailed order, dismissed the Somoto case in the Supreme Court by 4 to 3 and clarified that “he has not recused himself from the case nor They had a reason to isolate themselves.”
Justice Minullah said he agreed with Justice Yahya Afridi’s note on dismissing the petition and that his reasoning in the short order was “persuasive” and therefore he had “no hesitation in concurring with the judgment”.
In the note, Justice Minullah reiterated that the “manner and manner” in which the proceedings were initiated had “unnecessarily” exposed the court to political controversy.
Justice Minullah was among the judges who, on the advice of the Supreme Court bench hearing the Ghulam Mehmood Dogar case, rejected the suo motu notice taken by Chief Justice Bandial regarding the delay in elections in KP and Punjab. gave
Chief Justice Bandial had earlier constituted a nine-member bench to hear the Spontaneous Notice case.
Two of the nine judges recused themselves from the case, while four Justices Syed Shah, Justice Mandukhil, Justice Afridi and Justice Manullah dismissed the case.
Justice Isa’s suo motu orderÂ
Meanwhile, during the proceedings of the election delay case, a three-judge larger bench headed by Justice Qazi Faiz Isa had ordered the adjournment of all the self-notice cases filed under Article 184(3) of the Constitution.
The bench ordered the adjournment of cases under Article 184(3) of the Constitution pending amendments to the Supreme Court Rules, 1980 regarding the discretionary powers of the Chief Justice of Pakistan to constitute benches.
In his note issued later in the suo motu case, Justice Isa said that the bench’s constitution was against the rules and it could not override the majority order of his bench.
“Since it was not permissible under the Constitution or any law to assemble a Court of six Hon’ble Judges, the Supreme Court’s order dated 29 March 2023 passed in Case No. 4 cannot be separated from the note dated 4 April. could have been done.” said the judge.
“Judgments emanating from courtrooms clouded with the shadow of sovereignty cannot oust the Constitution,” the senior judge added.
