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Thursday March 28, 2024

Nation not to accept ‘one-man show’: Tarar

By APP
April 01, 2023

By Asim Yasin

ISLAMABAD: Special Assistant to Prime Minister Ataullah Tarar, while emphasising the need for a full court bench to hear the PTI’s petition against the delay in elections in KP and Punjab, said on Friday the nation would no longer accept the ‘one-man show’.

Speaking to the media outside the Supreme Court building on Friday, he added that they aimed to restore the dignity of the apex court and formation of a full court had become necessary; failing to do so will only prolong the matter.

Atta Tarar raised concerns about the reputation of the institution if the benches continue to be broken and constituted like this.

He believed that the “Chief Justice should have formed a full court bench” and claimed that the entire nation was saddened by what’s happening in the top court.

At the same time, he noted that lawyers had reservations about today’s bench, and the objection was raised after the formation of the bench.

The PM aide also criticised the negation of judges’ orders through circulars before the hearing. He argued that if such decisions continued to be made like this, it would negatively impact the institution’s reputation.

He urged Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial and political leaders to resolve all problems through consultation while emphasising that the nation is already suffering from problems, so it is essential to “sit together and solve the problems”.

Meanwhile, former senator Farhatullah Babar on Friday said no one could be pleased with deep polarization in the highest judicial forum as what “we are witnessing in the country is deeply distressing”.

“God knows what is next. No one can be pleased with this deep polarization in the highest judicial forum,” he said while replying to a question by The News about the current state of SC affairs.

He said it was time to pause, take a deep breath, look inwardly and take steps to correct the course. It is time to set up a truth commission. The foundations of judicial overreach and concentration of powers in one hand first laid by Iftikhar Chaudhry were advanced to new levels by Saqib Nisar.

It is time the parliament took the lead in revisiting the mode of judicial appointments, indeed undertaking judicial reforms in consultation with all stakeholders. “As if the crisis in judiciary is not enough, General (retd) Qamar Javed Bajwa reportedly in an interview with a journalist blurted that ‘Dawn Leaks’ was to pressure PM Nawaz Sharif to give extension to the then army chief Raheel Sharif. Someday, some insider will similarly blurt it out about ‘Memogate’, another scandal that rocked a civilian government.”

Meanwhile, Federal Minister for Poverty Alleviation and Social Safety and Secretary Information Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians Shazia Marri said the repeated dissolution of the bench headed by the SC chief justice is a question mark. “It is unfortunate that the measure of justice has been different in similar cases,” she said in a statement on Friday. She said that even today “our stance is that a separate constitutional court is needed for constitutional matters”.