The Supreme Court is hearing the Election Commission’s appeal against the formation of election tribunals.
Chief Justice Qazi Faiz Isa and Justice Naeem Akhtar are conducting the hearing, Election Commission lawyer Sikandar Bashir and PTI lawyer Salman Akram Raja have appeared before the court.
Election Commission lawyer Sikandar Bashir started the arguments in the court.
The lawyer said that the matter of interpretation of Article 219 (C) of the Constitution in the case, the Chief Justice asked him to tell us some facts of the case, the lawyer Election Commission said that on February 14, the Election Commission formed the tribunals. Therefore, letters were written to all the High Courts, the formation of tribunals is the authority of the Election Commission, the lists of names of judges were requested from all the High Courts through letters, the panels of the names of the judges were requested in the letters, Lahore High Court on 20 February. Names of 2 judges were given, both judges were notified for election tribunals.
He said that on April 26, two more judges were constituted as election tribunals.
During the hearing, the Chief Justice stopped the lawyer for uttering a word of respect for the High Court.
Chief Justice Qazi Faiz Isa remarked that the High Court is being called respectable, it is said for judges, he inquired that the English language belongs to England, is the Parliament called respectable there?
He said that the parliamentarians here do not respect each other, they abuse each other, we want respect, why not call the Election Commission respectable? Is the Election Commission not respectable?
Later, Vakil Election Commission said that there was no dispute until the formation of 4 tribunals, Justice Qazi Faiz Isa inquired whether the Chief Election Commissioner and the Chief Justice could not meet each other? Is it necessary to make everything controversial in Pakistan? There was a dispute between the President and the Election Commission on the date of the elections, why are letters being written by the Registrar High Court? If the Chief Justice and the Election Commissioner had sat down, there would have been a solution to the dispute, if they had sat and talked, they would have reached a conclusion. Is it forbidden for the Chief Justice and the Election Commission to meet?
On this, Justice Naeem Akhtar Afghan said that the Election Commission wrote letters to all the High Courts, there was no dispute, there was no dispute anywhere except the Lahore High Court, the proceedings of the tribunals are about to be completed in the Balochistan High Court.
Justice Qazi Faiz Isa remarked that is it an ego problem?
It should be remembered that on June 14, the Supreme Court had scheduled the application for hearing against the decision of the Election Commission of the Lahore High Court to form the Election Tribunal.
On June 14, the Election Commission of Pakistan had challenged the Lahore High Court’s decision to form election tribunals in the Supreme Court.
The Election Commission filed an appeal against the decision of Justice Shahid Karim of Lahore High Court.
The position adopted in the application is that the constitution of election tribunals is the authority of the Election Commission, the decision of the Lahore High Court to constitute tribunals is against the law and the High Court cannot use the powers of the Election Commission.
The Election Commission has requested the Supreme Court to annul the decision of the Lahore High Court and set the appeal for hearing tomorrow.
It should be noted that Chief Justice Shahzad Malik issued orders for the formation of 8 tribunals on June 12 based on the decision of the Lahore High Court.
