LAHORE: Lahore High Court Chief Justice Muhammad Ameer Bhatti has transferred pending petitions against the election of Punjab Chief Minister Hamza Shehbaz from his court to another judge who would resume hearing on June 20.

The chief justice has been hearing the petitions filed by PTI, PML-Q, Punjab Assembly Speaker Parvez Elahi and others against Hamza after the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) de-seated 25 MPAs for defecting in the election of the chief minister and the opinion of the Supreme Court stating that the votes of defectors were not to be counted.

During the last hearing on June 1, Barrister Syed Ali Zafar, Mr Elahi’s counsel, had concluded his arguments before the chief justice and a counsel of CM Hamza was supposed to resume his arguments on Monday.

On Monday, however, the registrar office fixed the petitions before Justice Shujaat Ali Khan in supplementary cause list.

Justice Khan observed that the record showed that the matter was partly heard by the chief justice and there was no order on the judicial side regarding transfer of the petitions to his court.

The judge directed the registrar office to put the matter back before the chief justice for appropriate orders.

Later, a written order released by Justice Khan said, “Before signing the above order, the Director General (Judicial and Case Management) produced a copy of the order passed by the honourable chief justice regarding transfer of this petition, along with connected matters, to this bench.”

Justice Khan recalled his earlier order and directed the office to fix the matter before his court on June 26.

In this matter, CM Hamza has already filed a written reply to the petitions saying the Supreme Court’s opinion on the votes of defectors would not have a retrospective effect.

The reply filed through Advocate Khalid Ishaq said the election of Hamza had already been held when the apex court issued its opinion on a presidential reference seeking interpretation of Article 63-A of the Constitution, which deals with defection by parliamentarians.

It further said the election in question was held prior to the SC opinion on Article 63-A and it was a settled law that any interpretation of law by the superior courts was not to apply retrospectively unless expressly stated otherwise.

It said the presidential reference was related to a vote of no-confidence in the election of the prime minister.

On the other side, Barrister Zafar contended that the effect of the apex court’s opinion on the defectors’ votes would be retrospective.

He said when courts interpreted a law it was in fact a decision of what the law was and had been since the day the law came into being.

He said the SC judgement had a binding effect as laid down in the earlier judgements. Therefore, he submitted that the question of retrospective effect was irrelevant because the SC judgement was to be used as a precedent to be applied to the facts of this case.

Mr Zafar argued that the petitions in hand were “quo warranto” as Hamza had not obtained the votes of the majority of the total membership of the assembly and the question of the application of the apex court’s opinion did not arise in this situation.

Published in Dawn, June 7th, 2022