The government was yet to make a decision on releasing Rs21 billion worth of funds for the elections to the Punjab Assembly, Power Minister Khurram Dastgir said on Tuesday.
“This is yet to be decided despite the federal cabinet’s decision that it was not applicable. But there are some days, our team of lawyers have sat together to review this whole matter to chalk out a legal way,” Dastgir said when Asma Shirazi asked him about the funds on her show Faisla Aap Ka.
The Supreme Court, which fixed May 14 as the election date for Punjab, directed the federal government to release election funds worth Rs21 billion to the Election Commission of Pakistan by April 10 for elections to the assemblies of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The court added that it may make such orders and give such directions as are deemed appropriate to such person or authority as necessary if the funds were provided or there was a shortfall.
The power minister was of the view that the legal way lay in the formation of a full court bench to clear the matter or else it would remain questionable and become a “blot” on the Supreme Court. Dastgir, who belongs to the PML-N, described the three-member SC bench as an “imperialist court”.
He went on to add that the apex court has dragged itself into politics by giving an election date and giving orders to state functionaries.
Shirazi had Pakistan Bar Council Vice Chairman Haroonur Rashid and PTI senior leader Ahmed Owais as her guests to speak on the SC judgement, which came on a day when former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was executed after a court decision. She also asked about Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s advice for all stakeholders to sit for dialogue and warned of repercussions of the ongoing crisis.
Rashid, the PBC vice chairman, said that right from the first day their demand for a full court was rejected. He claimed that the clear conflict in the judiciary, arising after the bench formed to hear election delay cases diminished, showed that the judges were not on the same page.
“Still if elections are held or not this is a chaotic situation,” he said.
When PTI’s Owais was asked about the many rights exercised by the top court through the decision, he said the Constitution mandate was important to uphold. He added that the SC took a bold decision at a time when no institution was ready to cooperate with the ECP in holding the polls.
Owais, who is also a legal expert, added that the order of the KP election date was not issued because there was not a separate petition on it. He stressed the need for changing the mindset in order to maintain the supremacy of the Constitution.
The government has maintained that it does not accept the top court decision, reiterating its demand for a full court in view of the dissenting note of two judges and diminished bench.
Reasons for not forming a full court would be known if it was probed in detail, Owais said and added that the CJP was embarrassed when a senior pusine judge gave judgement.“If you break the discipline inside the institution it will have an adverse impact and the people will get a chance to talk and raise fingers,” he said. The PTI leader supported his argument that the decision for election was signed by all five judges of the reconstituted bench
Dastgir did not give an explicit answer to the query if another prime minister would go home in the face of contempt of court. The reason for a full court was to have transparency amid the apparent divisions among judges, he said.
He blamed PTI chief Imran Khan and the SC for causing anarchy in the country.
“The necessity is that you have to run under the system. The PDM should save the Constitution and law. No dictator ever saved the country by his guns. The law and the constitution save the country. So sit together and end the difference to resolve issues,” Owais said.
