SC reserves order on govt request to drop curative review plea against Justice Isa

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Monday reserved its judgment on the application filed by the coalition government, seeking withdrawal of the curative review petition filed against Justice Qazi Faez Isa by the then government of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI).

Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Umar Ata Bandial heard the federal government’s plea in his chamber. After hearing to the arguments of Attorney General Mansoor Awan, the chief justice reserved the verdict on the matter.

After the hearing, the attorney general told reporter that he submitted before the chief justice that there was no room for a second review or curative review in the Constitution. He said that in India a second review was filed after a court judgment which was decided in 2002 following which the Indian Supreme Court amended its rules and created a provision for curative review, pursuant to that judgment.

He further said that amendment was followed by judicial proceedings, whereas in current case there was an objection on the administrative side by the Registrar Office against which there existed a remedy in the rules.

The AG recalled that at the time when the reference was filed, the government did not avail that remedy, but the incumbent government felt no need in availing the remedy and preferred to withdraw that appeal.

When asked as to whether a reference could be filed against any chief justice, the AG replied: “No comments.” It is pertinent to mention here that Chief Justice Bandial heard in the chamber, the plea of incumbent government seeking withdrawal of its curative review petition against a court order that accepted the review petitions challenging the court’s June 19, 2020, judgment on the Presidential Reference against Justice Qazi Faez Isa wherein the apex court had empowered the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to conduct an inquiry into the assets of the judge’s family.

Later on, Justice Isa and various bar associations filed review petition against June 19, 2020 judgment and on April 26, 2021 a ten-member full court of the Supreme Court headed by Justice Bandial by majority of six to four had allowed Justice Isa’s petition and others

“For the reasons to be recorded later, captioned Review Petitions are allowed and the directions contained in paras 4 to 11 of the impugned short order dated 19.06.2020 passed in Const Petition No.17/2019 and other connected matters, alongwith supporting detailed reasons given in the majority judgment of the same date, are recalled and set aside,” the five members held in their separate order.

They held that all the subsequent proceedings, actions, orders, information and reports in pursuance of the directions contained in the short order dated 19-6-2020 and the detailed reasons thereof, are declared to be illegal and without any legal effect.

Earlier on July 8, 2021, the PTI government had filed chamber appeals in the Supreme Court against the objections raised by its Registrar Office on the curative petitions, seeking review on Justice Isa’s case.

The PTI government, after removing the objections, raised by the Registrar Office filed chamber appeals praying to review the verdict given by the apex court on April 26 in the review petitions filed by Justice Isa to the extent of referring the matter to the FBR. Later, on March 30, the incumbent government approved the withdrawal of the curative review reference as the government decided to not pursue the matter further.