ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court indicated on Thursday that it would invoke Article 190 of the Constitution if its orders were not complied with.

The article empowers the apex court to summon any executive authority of the state to come in its aid and help implement its orders.

“If our orders are not complied with then we may consider invoking Article 190 of the Constitution,” observed Chief Justice Nasir-ul-Mulk who heads a larger bench hearing a set of petitions seeking prevention of extra-constitutional steps in the wake of sit-ins being held by the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) and the Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) on the Constitution Avenue.

Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali, a member of the five-judge bench, was not present.

The provision empowers court to summon executive authority to come to its aid and help implement its orders

The chief justice made the observation when Advocate Athar Shah Bokhari, representing the Multan High Court Bar Association, requested the court to invoke Article 190 to get its order implemented because despite a number of directives issued to the counsel representing the PAT, one side of the Constitution Avenue had not been cleared for free movement of vehicles.

A lawyer for the Peshawar High Court Bar Association drew the court’s attention to the digging of graves on the avenue by workers of the two protesting parties.

The court said it was treading very cautiously and instead of issuing a direct order for clearing the road, it had been asking the counsel for the two parties to persuade their leadership to shift the sit-ins to some other place.

“We could have given a clear order of opening the roads but we refrained from doing so,” the chief justice said, adding that since it was an administrative issue, the counsel should be involved in solving the problem.

The Article 190 was last time invoked when former chief justice Sajjad Ali Shah had written a letter to then army chief Jehangir Karamat after the Nov 28, 1997, storming of the Supreme Court by PML-N workers. But the order was not complied with.

On Wednesday, PTI’s counsel Hamid Khan, PAT’s lawyer Ali Zafar, Attorney General Salman Aslam Butt and Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) President Kamran Murtaza, along with SC Registrar Tahir Shahbaz, had visited the Constitution Avenue to examine whether the court’s order had been complied with.

Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja was upset over the defiance by the two parties for not abiding by the court’s directives and said that perhaps “we are living in an existential moment in our history”.

He said he wondered whether PAT’s stance was that they had the right to protest and assemble on any road for all times to come. He also cited a research paper on public protests held over the past seven years in countries like India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, etc.

But Ali Zafar said that instead of going through the history of protests in other countries, the court should recall the lawyers’ movement which was held outside the Constitution Avenue and by virtue of which the judges detained by former president Pervez Musharraf had been restored and the independence of judiciary was strengthened.

Mr Zafar said he was trying to persuade the PAT leadership to clear the road and requested the court to let him try one more time.

But he said the protesters had assembled on the Constitution Avenue to seek justice for 14 innocent people killed in police firing in Model Town on June 17 and might not go home till they got justice.

Justice Saqib Nisar observed that the court never asked the party not to protest but wanted only to protect and preserve the Constitution at all cost. “What we are saying is that there is always a corresponding right and while protesting one cannot trample the rights of others.”

The chief justice observed that blocking the Constitution Avenue was a side issue; the main issue was still pending with the court on which it had even issued an order restraining all state functionaries from any unconstitutional step.

The court directed Ali Zafar to submit by Friday a report suggesting efforts made by him to get the road cleared.

The hearing was postponed to Monday.

Published in Dawn, August 29th, 2014