The former chief minister of Punjab Hamza Shehbaz has challenged the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down Punjab Assembly deputy speaker’s order wherein he had dismissed ten votes of the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q), subsequent to which Hamza was made the provincial chief executive.
Hamza petitioned the Supreme Court for a review of the July 26 judgment through Mansoor Awan, which overturned former deputy speaker Dost Mohammad Mazari’s ruling and named Pervez Elahi the new chief minister of Punjab.
Hamza requested that a full court bench be set up to hear cases involving the interpretation and implementation of Article 63-A of the constitution in this context, as well as other related topics and that the entire court, or at the very least a 12-member bench, consider the cases concurrently.
The review petition submitted that without “prejudice, the order, by holding that directions of the Parliamentary Party sans any role of the Party/Party Head is binding”, contradicted the apex court’s ruling dated May 17, 2022, on Article 63A given in Presidential Reference No. 1 of 2022 wherein the SC extended the right of a political party under Article 17(2) to Article 63A, and arrived “at the conclusion that a vote contrary to the party policy is to be disregarded and not counted”.
It further argued that the opinion of the SC in the presidential reference was contrary to the letter of Article 63A and that votes polled contrary to the directions could not be disregarded.
The petition stated once more that a review petition was already ongoing before the SC against the order in the presidential reference and that anything submitted in respect to the aforementioned order was “without prejudice to the pending review petition”.
