ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Thursday disposed of a case relating to the transfer of challenges to the appointment of two members of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) by sending it to the Islamabad High Court.

The petition was moved by retired Justice Altaf Ibrahim Qureshi and retired Justice Irshad Qaiser, both members of the ECP from Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, respectively.

Their appointments were challenged by a political party called Aam Loag Ittehad in the Sindh High Court and by the Saraikistan Democratic Party in the Lahore High Court on the grounds that none of the members completed two-year constitutional bar after their retirement as judges under Article 207(2) of the Constitution.

The SC bench headed by Justice Umar Ata Bandial ordered the petitioners to raise their plea before the high court.

The ECP members raised a plea before the apex court that challenges to their appointments in two different high courts were incompetent, not maintainable and coram non judice since both the members hold their offices in Islamabad within the territorial jurisdiction of the IHC.

Therefore, they argued, the Supreme Court should order calling the cases from the Sindh High Court and the Lahore High Court and transfer them to the Islamabad High Court since the writ of quo warranto could only be issued by the high court in the territorial jurisdiction of which the person held the public office.

Published in Dawn, September 27th, 2019