SC has rejected pleas with 4-3 majority, says law minister

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Law and Justice Azam Nazeer Tarar has said he believed that the petitions had been rejected by a 4-3 majority.

He was commenting on the Supreme Court verdict on its election date suo motu case.

A five-member bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial, ruled that elections should be held within 90 days. However, Justice Mansoor Ali Shah and Justice Mandokhail jointly dissented with the majority verdict, saying “the suo motu proceedings do not constitute a fit case to exercise the extraordinary original jurisdiction of this court under Article 184(3) of the Constitution and are thus not maintainable as the same constitutional and legal issues seeking the same relief are pending and being deliberated upon by the respective provincial high courts in Lahore and Peshawar, without there being any inordinate delay in the conduct of the proceedings before them”.

Speaking to Geo News, Tarar said he could not comment on the verdict as the law minister since he had not received the copy and discussed the same with the federal cabinet.

“However, as a lawyer, I am of the view that these petitions have been dismissed with a 4-3 majority, as on February 23 when the case was first heard and Justice Athar Minallah and Justice Yahya Afridi had clearly stated that these are not maintainable.”

The minister maintained that the suo motu notice taken under Article 184(3) doesn’t qualify as this matter was already pending before the high court in KP and Punjab. “Today, two more judges said that the petitions were not maintainable, so in my opinion, it’s a 4-3 verdict.”

He referred to the SC verdict in the Panama case against former prime minister Nawaz Sharif when a split verdict of a five-member bench was later merged as a 5-0 verdict. “This issue should now be adjudicated in respective high courts,” he said.