PTI moves SC for judicial commission to probe ‘important matters’ including attempt on Imran’s life
PTI leader Shah Mahmood Qureshi said on Monday that his party had simultaneously approached Supreme Court (SC) registries in multiple cities for the constitution of a judicial commission to probe several “important matters”, including an attempt on Imran’s life in Wazirabad on November 3.
Speaking to the media in Lahore, Qureshi said the petitions were filed in Lahore, Islamabad, Karachi, Peshawar and Quetta.
In these pleas, Qureshi said, the SC has been requested to form a judicial commission to investigate the assassination attempt on Imran, the alleged refusal to register a first information report of the incident as requested by the complainant, the purported video of PTI Senator Azam Swati and his wife as well as the killing of journalist Arshad Sharif in Kenya.
He expressed hope that the chief justice of Pakistan (CJP) would consider his party’s pleas.
In the plea filed in Peshawar, a copy of which is available with Dawn.com, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Parliamentary Affairs Minister Shaukat Ali Yousfzai is the applicant. The petition states that Yousafzai had received letters from several members of the KP Assembly to move the SC for the constitution of the commission.
His plea bears the signatures of 30 members of the KP assembly who have endorsed the plea.
In the plea filed in the Lahore registry, Usman Buzdar is the applicant. The plea, a copy of which is also available with Dawn.com, Buzdar too has mentioned that he had received letters from several Punjab Assembly members seeking the constitution of the judicial commission.
His plea also bears the signatures of multiple Punjab Assembly members with a hand-written note saying PTI MNAs also endorse the petition.
Petitioners in the application filed in Islamabad were several PTI MNAs and senators, including Shibli Faraz and Shahzad Waseem.
In Karachi, PTI leaders Ali Zaidi and Imran Ismail among others reached the SC registry to file the petition.
Meanwhile, former National Assembly deputy speaker Qasim Suri, PTI MNA Munawara Bibi Baloch and Balochistan Assembly MPA Muhammad Mubeen Khan Khilji moved the plea in Quetta.
Fawad urges CJP ‘not to weaken’ SC
PTI leader Fawad Chaudhry, alongside Qureshi in Lahore, urged the CJP “not to weaken the institution of Supreme Court to the extent that people stop approaching it”.
He said the PTI was “working to restore the constitution and the respect of institutions”.
Chaudhry claimed that the institutions had caused themselves “great loss by taking wrong decisions” and that the PTI wanted the institutions to “stand up on their own feet”.
PTI claims party legislators stopped from entering SC
Meanwhile, PTI leaders have claimed that the SC registrar stopped legislators from entering the apex court in Islamabad earlier today.
“Isn’t the SC supposed to be a public building? If legislators cannot enter a public building, where one goes to seek justice what must be the fate of ordinary citizens,” former human rights minister Shireen Mazari tweeted.
PTI leader Hammad Azhar criticised the top court for not making any “comprehensive progress” in the Azam Swati custodial torture case and the Wazirabad FIR issue.
“The only way SC has shown its existence is by stopping National Assembly members from entering its premises,” he tweeted.
Party leader Omar Ayub Khan called on the chief justice of Pakistan to take cognisance and action against this “despicable behavior” of the SC registrar.
“Why didn’t the Registrar SCP allow PTI parliamentarians to enter the SCP premises today? This is intolerable and against the rights of the parliamentarians,” he said.