ISLAMABAD: The real issue before the court is whether relief can be granted to a party which was not before the Supreme Court, Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar observed on Tuesday.

His observation came as the 11-judge Constitutional Bench, hearing the reserved seats case, was asked by the Sunni Ittehad Council’s lawyer to “do complete justice”.

“Your lordships must exercise complete justice or allow the present reviews if the court thinks the case did not obligate it to do complete justice,” argued senior counsel Faisal Siddiqi.

Advocate Salman Akram Raja will now present his case on behalf of PTI candidate Kanwal Shauhzab, when the hearing resumes today (Wednesday).

SIC counsel asks court to do ‘complete justice’ in reserved seats case

“It is only when the court is convinced on doing complete justice, it will realise that the will of the people cannot be defeated on mere technicalities or by a mala fide ECP,” Mr Siddiqi said.

During the hearing, Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar wondered whether PTI had been allocated the reserved seats in the parliament on the basis of the 39 candidates who joined the party after filing of fresh affidavits in line with the July 12 majority judgement.

The counsel replied in negative, asking the court to take notice of alleged foot dragging on part of ECP for the last one year and dubbed the same as discrimination.

At this, a representative of the commission appeared at the rostrum to inform CB that the 39 members had already been notified by ECP for their association with PTI but no reserved seats had been allocated to them since it could only be done under a formula that too after the fate of the rest of the 41 left over seats were determined.

Then why ECP allocated the reserved seats to other party instead of waiting for the final decision of the case, asked Justice Syed Hasan Azhar Rizvi.

The ECP official remind­ed that reserved seats had to be allocated once and not twice also highlighting a pending clarification before the Supreme Court which the commission had sought by filing a petition stating it find itself in a peculiar situation since if it discharges its obligation then it will be nullifying the Elections (Second) Amendment Act, 2024 enacted by the parliament with retrospective effect.

During the hearing, Justice Mazhar pointed out that the real issue before the court was whether complete justice could be dispensed under Article 187 of the Constitution and relief be granted to a party that was not before the Supreme Court.

He also asked the counsel to cite any precedence where the Supreme Court had granted relief to a third party that was not before it.

“Can we venture into the domain of Article 184(3) while invoking Article 187 of the Constitution?” wondered Justice Aminuddin Khan, who was presiding over the bench.

Published in Dawn, June 18th, 2025