ISLAMABAD: At PTI counsel reque­­st, the Supreme Court’s constitutional be­­n­ch on Wednesday adjourned election rigging proceedings until after winter vacation.

Headed by Justice Aminuddin Khan, the seven-judge constitutional bench had taken up PTI founder Imran Khan’s plea seeking formation of a judicial commission for a thorough audit into the Feb 8 general elections and compilation of what the petition called ‘false’ and ‘fraudulent’ results, rendering winners into losers and losers into winners.

Moved through senior counsel Hamid Khan, the petition, which was jointly fil­ed by Imran Khan and his party PTI, had contended that members of any such commission should consist of the SC judges who hold no bias towards anyone.

On Wednesday, when the case was called, Hamid Khan had already left the courtroom. Subsequently, the bench had to ask the staff to call the lawyer. As he arrived, Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar reminded him that his case was scheduled for hearing. The counsel replied he believed the case was scheduled for Dec 12. The court staff then showed the cause list to the counsel.

Seven-judge bench takes decision at PTI counsel’s request

Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail obs­erved that petitioner’s advocate-on-rec­ord (AoR) has already been notified stating he should be in contact with his AoR.

The counsel then requested the constitutional bench to fix the case after winter vacation, to which the court agreed. The bench postponed the hearing to be taken up after the winter vacation. Earlier, the registrar office had returned the petition after raising objections. When the case will be heard, the court will consider both office objections as well as the main petition.

Also, the bench ordered fixing of a similar application of Sher Afzal Marwat for hearing after the holidays.

In its petition seeking a judicial probe into the alleged election rigging, the PTI also sought suspension of all consequential acts of forming governments at the federal and Punjab levels until the findings of the judicial commission were made public.

The petition regretted that a political party having elected members in the national and provincial assemblies cannot be deprived of reserved seats in the assemblies in proportion of the elected members in accordance with Article 51 and Article 106.

In 2015, a judicial commission, constituted to probe PTI’s allegations of rigging in the 2013 general elections, had concluded that polls were in large part organised and conducted fairly and in accordance with the law. That commission was formed under a presidential ordinance on April 3, 2015 after months of a tug of war between the PTI and the PML-N in which it had recorded testimonies of 69 witnesses, including politicians, government and judicial officers and journalists.

Now in the fresh petition, PTI emphasised that courts cannot turn a blind eye to the allegedly obvious and apparent acts of high handedness, cruelty, oppression, suppression and violation of fundamental rights on part of the caretaker government and the illegitimately installed governments at the federal and provincial levels.

Phone tapping

Separately, during the hearing of an old pending case, Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar wondered about any legislation related to phone tapping, noting that only a judge could give permission for phone tapping.

The additional attorney general said that according to a law existing since 2013, ISI and IB have been notified about a procedure for phone tapping that also includes judicial supervision.

Justice Mazhar asked if any judge had been notified for this purpose so far. He observed that the law did not allow everyone to tap everyone’s phone. Justice Mandokhail, however, was of the opinion that the phone tapping law was vague.

Published in Dawn, December 12th, 2024