LAHORE: Federal Law Minister Azam Nazir Tarar says there can be no two laws on a similar issue, and demanded that the chief justice of Pakistan form a full court bench for adjudicating the controversy involving the election of the Punjab chief minister.

He told a press conference here on Sunday that the chief minister election issue would be resolved for good if the full bench heard the case and in a reference to apparently two different approaches of the apex court on defection law, he added there could not be two different laws on as many cases of similar nature.

In a reference to the likely ouster from power of Hamza by the apex court, the law minister said that if a representative of the people is to be sent home through a legal decision then the justice, transparency and independence demand a full court bench to hear the matter.

“There is no solution to the issue other than the formation of the full court bench.”

Federal law minister defends deputy speaker’s ruling

Flanked by Punjab Home Minister Ataullah Tarar, the law minister regretted that the Supreme Court did not take notice of PTI MPAs and workers scaling walls of its Lahore Registry following Parvez Elahi’s defeat in the runoff poll for Punjab chief minister.

He defended Punjab Assembly Deputy Speaker Dost Mazari’s ruling of rejecting 10 PML-Q votes for Mr Elahi under Article 63-A, and called the step “legal” and “constitutional”.

Apparently, to further highlight the alleged soft corner of the Supreme Court towards the PTI, the minister said that the doors of the Lahore Registry were opened even before the petition was filed by Mr Elahi hours after losing the run-off poll.

He repeated the coalition government’s demand that a full court bench is formed to hear the plea filed by Mr Elahi on the chief minister’s elections.

“A full court bench should be formed considering the importance of the case. Every section of society is demanding a full court bench. Even five former presidents of the Supreme Court Bar Association have made the same demand.”

The federal minister hoped that Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial would keep the demand in mind when he resumes the hearing in Islamabad on Monday.

He said that a five-member bench of the apex court gave a 3-2 decision on a presidential reference on interpretation of Article 63-A. Three judges said that votes of the dissident members would be cast but not counted but the dissident member would be unseated. The minister said he would not comment on the unseating of the PML-Q members as it was between Chaudhry Shujaat and his MPAs.

Quoting National Food Security and Research Minister Tariq Bashir Cheema, who is from the PML-Q, Mr Tarar said that the Q-League MPAs had been verbally informed of party president Ch Shujaat’s decision and a letter was also dispatched to them through TCS, an urgent mail service.

About the claims that PML-Q’s parliamentary party meeting had held on July 21 to decide the party line for the vote, he said there is no video or [news] clipping of that meeting, while Ch Shujaat gave clear instructions to his MPAs, verbally and through the letter, to vote for Hamza.

Published in Dawn, July 25th, 2022