MUZAFFARABAD: The Sup­reme Court of Azad Jammu and Kashmir on Friday suspended the AJK High Court’s judgement and directed the AJK Election Commission to take all necessary measures to hold the by-election in Mirpur as per already announced schedule.

On Thursday, a division bench of the high court had admitted two consolidated petitions challenging the holding of by-election in LA-III Mirpur-3 amid vacant office of the chief election commissioner. The high court had also suspended the election commission’s Oct 7 notification whereby schedule for the by-poll was announced.

However, due to an alleged typographical mistake, Oct 4 was mentioned in the high court’s verdict, instead of Oct 7.

The Oct 4 notification issued by the election commission disqualified Chaudhry Muhammad Saeed, a legislator belonging to the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz from Mirpur, in the light of his conviction by the Supreme Court on Sept 25 on contempt of court charges.

Division bench of high court admitted two consolidated petitions challenging holding of by-election in LA-III Mirpur-3

On Friday, a petition for leave to appeal (PLA) was filed by Barrister Sultan Mahmood, regional chief of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, along with an application for interim relief in the apex court’s Mirpur circuit, through advocates Khalid Rashid Chaudhry and Javed Najam-us-Saqib.

In its short order, an apex court bench noted that the high court had “suspended the operation of Oct 4 notification issued in pursuance of a judgement by the Supreme Court and not that of the Oct 7 notification whereby the schedule for the by-election was issued”. “Since the Oct 7 notification regarding holding of by-election in Mirpur is very much in operation, the process of election cannot be stopped,” it declared.

The SC bench pointed out that Sohaib Saeed, the other contesting candidate [from PML-N], had also filed an application for his inclusion in the line of petitioners and requested for suspension of the high court judgement. “In view of the legal position and the agreement of the [rival] contesting parties, the operation of the impugned high court judgement of Nov 21 is suspended,” the order said.

Interestingly, after the issuance of the short order by the apex court, a corrigendum was issued by the high court which stated that the date of notification [in its Thursday’s judgement] should be read as Oct 7, and not Oct 4.

Published in Dawn, November 23rd, 2019