ISLAMABAD/LARKANA: PML-N chief organiser Maryam Nawaz Sharif urged the chief justice of Pakistan to get the nod of his fellow judges for the execution of the Supreme Court’s decision in the Punjab Assembly polls delay case.

Meanwhile, in Gambat, PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari accused judges of ignoring past injustices and regretted that the CJP was not unwilling to share his powers with fellow judges.

Ms Sharif’s remarks came a day after the apex court quashed the Election Commission’s order of delaying polls to October and set May 14 as the election date in Punjab.

Addressing the lawyers’ convention in the Judicial Complex of Rawalpindi org­anised by the PML-N Lawyers’ For­um, Ms Sharif termed the decision of a three-member bench of the apex court comprising CJP Umar Ata Bandial, Justice Ijazul Ahsan and Justice Muneeb Akhtar “a minority decision”, saying that four judges had already dismissed this case.

Chief justice not ready to share his powers with fellow judges, regrets Bilawal

She alleged that the recent Supreme Court order was part of a sequence of decisions taken against PML-N by former chief justices Saqib Nisar and Asif Saeed Khosa in collaboration with former spymaster Faiz Hameed.

She accused Mr Hameed, who retired last year as a lieutenant general, of blackmailing judges to get “tailor-made” decisions.

Ms Nawaz pointed out that the CJP took suo motu notice on the note of a two-member bench comprising Justice Ahsan and Justice Mazahar Ali Akbar Naqvi on polls in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab assemblies.

Mr Sharif said that one judge was a “monitoring judge” in cases against her and father Nawaz Sharif, and was also connected with a controversial lease to high-rise apartments “One Constitution Avenue” developed by the real estate developer BNP (Pvt) Ltd.

The judge was among the legal team of the said builder and was also part of the apex court bench that restored the lease of the multibillion-rupee plot.

The PML-N leader also urged the Supreme Judicial Council to take notice of Justice Naqvi’s purported audio leak.

Meanwhile, PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Wednesday also accused judges of not dispensing justice while ruling the country in collaboration with dictators.

Speaking at the inauguration ceremony of the country’s first lung transplant unit in the Gambat city of Khairpur district, he said the CJP was not ready to share his powers with fellow judges.

In contrast, he said, former president Asif Ali Zardari was the country’s most powerful civilian president, but “he gave all his powers to the parliament”.

The foreign minister lamented that judges gave lectures to the entire country about who was corrupt and who was the Sicilian mafia, but the same courts sentenced PPP founder Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to death and no judge was ready to do justice in this regard until today.

He alleged that when the present CJP was the chief justice of the Lahore High Court, he had ordered the construction of Kalabagh Dam, ignoring the rights of small provinces.

Published in Dawn, April 6th, 2023