ISLAMABAD, Feb 3: A judge on the Supreme Court bench hearing Sharif brothers’ electoral eligibility case said on Tuesday that proceedings in the absence of the brothers were like a marriage party without the bridegroom.

“Should we consider a wedding ceremony without the bridegroom a party or just a gathering of spectators? Can we call a long line of bogeys without the engine a train?” observed Justice Sheikh Hakim Ali, alluding to the consistent absence of the main litigants from the proceedings.

The three-member bench, including Justice Mohammad Moosa K. Leghari and Justice Syed Sakhi Hussain Bukhari, is hearing appeals of the federal government against the June 23, 2008, order of the Lahore High Court disqualifying Nawaz Sharif from contesting a by-election for having been convicted in the plane conspiracy case.

“What should we consider when the actual candidate (Nawaz Sharif) is not before us,” Justice Hakim Ali observed while referring to the fact that the politician is not coming to the court despite notices issued to him but being represented by the proposer and seconder of his candidature.

Advocate Mohammad Akram Sheikh, the counsel for Mehar Zafar Iqbal, the proposer, said that in a wedding party friends did all the work while the bridegroom sat idle.

He argued that the June 23 judgment of disqualifying Mr Sharif was given in an ‘unholy haste’. He said the LHC chief justice constituted a new bench after two members of an earlier bench had recused themselves on the question of being biased. But the new bench commenced proceedings without issuing mandatory notices to the attorney general and the advocate general of Punjab.

However, Advocate Ahmed Raza Qasuri, counsel for Khurram Shah, a voter, clarified that the case was disposed of because he had approached the apex court to seek its order for an early disposal of Shahbaz Sharif’s case within two days.

Akram Sheikh, however, argued that the apex court could not ask high courts to cut short proceedings.

Advocate Qasuri accused the proposer and seconder of stretching the case till March 9, 2009 (the day of lawyers’ long march for reinstatement of deposed judges, including justice Iftikhar Chaudhry) to create chaos and harm the government.

Mr Sheikh rejected the allegation and said he was only assisting the court and not trying to kill its precious time.

Referring to the 1993 Nawaz Sharif case, he argued that the judgment had made the election laws subservient to Article 17 (freedom of association) of the Constitution by giving the fundamental right to every member of a party to contest elections, get elected, form a government and continue in office for a period prescribed in the Constitution.

Therefore, he said, it was wrong to suggest that election dispute was a private matter between two parties, rather than involvement of stakes of a constituency, democracy and society.

“These cases (challenge to Sharif brothers’ candidature) have been instituted by shadow petitioners (Khurram Shah and Noor Ellahi, an independent candidate) whose identity till date is not known and who want to disqualify a person chosen by the nation as their leader with 40 years of struggle at hand. Both of them (petitioners) are playing with the future of the country by dragging the Sharifs into courts despite the fact that they have been cleared by the election commission,” Akram Sheikh added.

He argued that political rights and political justice were interlinked and the rationale of election laws in the world was considered as statutory right, but in Pakistan it was a fundamental right.