The registrar of the Supreme Court of Pakistan has returned a review petition filed by the government against the apex court's judgement on the review petitions in the Justice Qazi Faez Isa case.

The office returned the application with the objection that a review could not be conducted twice into one case.

In April, Justice Isa won a case which set aside the SC's earlier directive to the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to conduct an inquiry into three UK properties in the name of his wife and children.

"Against the order of the majority in the review petitions of Justice Qazi Faez Isa and others dated [April 26], the Federation of Pakistan on [May 25, 2021] preferred a Curative Review Petition on which certain objections were raised by the Office of the Supreme Court," the Ministry of Law and Justice said in a statement on Wednesday.

It said the petition "shall be re-filed in due course of time" in accordance with the law, after addressing the registrar office's objections.

In a dramatic twist in the nearly two-year-long legal saga, the Supreme Court by a majority of six to four had on April 26 overturned its June 19, 2020, majority judgement that required verification and subsequent findings by the tax authorities of three foreign properties in the name of the wife and children of Justice Isa.

The presidential reference against Justice Isa — in line to become the chief justice on September 18, 2023, for 13 months — was already thrown out by the SC as “invalid” in June last year.

The reference filed by the government in May 2019 had alleged that Justice Isa acquired three properties in London on lease in the name of his wife and children between 2011 and 2015, but did not disclose them in his wealth returns. Through his petition, Justice Isa had pleaded before the court that the powers that be wanted to remove him from his constitutional office by hook or by crook. President Arif Alvi, he had claimed, did not form his own independent opinion before the filing of the reference against him.

Days after its judgement on the review petitions, the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC), headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Gulzar Ahmed, decided not to proceed any further against Justice Isa in the light of the April 26 10-judge SC verdict, an informed source told Dawn at the time.