PTI also challenges ordinance amending law on key SC body

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Thursday challenged in the Supreme Court the newly promulgated Ordinance 2024, amending the Supreme Court (Practice and Procedure) Act 2023.

PTI Chairman Gohar Ali Khan filed a petition in the court on Thursday under Article 184(3) of the Constitution, challenging the SC (Practice and Procedure) Amendment Ordinance, 2024. It is the third petition filed in the apex court challenging the ordinance.

Earlier, Advocate Ehtashamul Haq and former chairperson Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) Afrasiab Khattak had also challenged the newly promulgated ordinance.

Filed through Advocate Sameer Khosa, the PTI chairman made the federation of Pakistan, through cabinet secretary, Ministry of Law and Justice, through its secretary, President of Pakistan, through secretary to the President as respondents.

He prayed to the apex court to declare that the Supreme Court (Practice and Procedure) Amendment Ordinance, 2024 as whole, or in particular Sections 2, 3, 4(a), and 5 (to the extent of insertion of Section 7A), is ultra vires the Constitution for being violative of, inter alia, Articles 4, 9, 10A, 19A, 25, 89, 175(2) and 191 of the Constitution.

He further prayed that all actions taken pursuant to the Supreme Court (Practice and Procedure) Amendment Ordinance, 2024 including the purported re-constitution of the committee and any decisions taken by the said committee be declared without lawful authority and be set aside.

He prayed to the apex court that during the pendency of the instant petition, the committee purportedly reconstituted under the impugned ordinance may very kindly be restrained from constituting the benches and fixation of cases and the lawfully constituted committee under Supreme Court (Practice and Procedure) Act, 2023 consisting of the Chief Justice of Pakistan and the two next senior most judges may be allowed to continue functioning.