LAHORE: Lahore High Court Chief Justice Muhammad Ameer Bhatti on Monday constituted a five-member bench to decide an intra court appeal (ICA) filed by the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) challenging an order of a single bench for oath taking of Chief Minister Hamza Shehbaz.

A two-judge bench had taken up the appeal before Eidul Fitr holidays and referred the same to the chief justice with a request to constitute a larger bench comprising at least five or more judges considering important legal and constitutional questions raised in the appeal.

As an interim relief, the bench comprising Justice Sajid Mahmood Sethi and Justice Tariq Saleem Sheikh had suspended an observation of the single bench regarding the conduct of the president of Pakistan and governor of Punjab.

Justice Sadaqat Ali Khan would head the five-member larger bench with Justice Shahid Jamil Khan, Justice Shehram Sarwar Chaudhry, Justice Sajid Mahmood Sethi and Justice Tariq Saleem Sheikh.

The cause list of the larger bench is likely to be issued in a day or two.

Sibtain Khan and 16 other MPAs of the PTI filed the appeal though Advocate Azhar Siddique challenging the other day order by the single bench on a third petition of newly-elected chief minister Hamza Shehbaz against the delay in his oath taking by the president and the governor.

The appeal said neither the president and governor were impleaded as respondents in the constitutional petition, nor any notice of hearing was issued enabling them to controvert the contentions raised by the respondent (Hamza) by filing reply.

It said important legal and constitutional questions raised on behalf of the PTI regarding the maintainability of Hamza’s petition had neither been noted nor repelled with reasons in impugned judgment.

It argued that mandatory provisions of law were not complied with and the single judge passed the impugned judgment without due process guaranteed under Articles 4 and 10-A of the Constitution.

The appeal said for implementation of decisions passed in two previous petitions by Hamza fresh constitutional petition was not competent and remedy, if any, was by way of filing contempt petition under Article 204 of the Constitution.

It pleaded that the high court had no authority to nominate any specific person, including speaker of the national assembly, for administration of oath to the newly elected chief minister, thus the impugned judgment, being in violation of various provisions of the Constitution as well as applicable law, was unsustainable.

On this appeal, notices had already been issued to the attorney general of Pakistan and the advocate general of Punjab for their assistance by the two-judge bench.

Published in Dawn,May 10th, 2022