A three-member Supreme Court bench dismissed a review petition of the country’s top electoral authority on Thursday against the apex court’s decision to hold snap polls in Punjab.
“The court will intervene whenever the Constitution is violated,” Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Umar Ata Bandial remarked during the hearing. A three-member special SC bench led by CJP Bandial and comprising Justice Ijazul Ahsan and Justice Muneeb Akhtar announced the decision after hearing the arguments of ECP.
The election commission’s counsel could not point out the defects in the decision, the top court remarked.
The ruling comes as a setback for the ECP’s assertion that it has the right to announce the election date. It will likely have a bearing on the date of a general election in the country.
At the outset of the hearing, ECP lawyer Sajeel Swati sought one week’s time from the court for preparation in the case.
To this, CJP Bandial asked the lawyer to present his stance. “We will also review the case with you.”
“I have formed additional grounds in the case,” said the ECP lawyer, “the most important question was about giving the date of elections. The ECP has the right to give election date after amendments into sections 57 and 58 [of the Election Act].”
The ECP lawyer informed the court that he wanted to submit some additional documents as he received the detailed order from SC two weeks ago.
The court replied that the case pertaining to the order had been completed. It ordered the lawyer to read the order in court and told him that the election date was not related to the review petition.
At one point, CJP Bandial said that the court would intervene whenever there was a constitutional violation. The court remarked that no institution can violate the Constitution.
“No institution can transgress the Constitution and under the Constitution, the ECP is bound to hold elections within three months,” the CJP said.
On April 4, the Supreme Court ruled that the ECP’s decision to postpone polls to the Punjab Assembly till October 8 was “unconstitutional” and fixed May 14 as the date for polls in the province.
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“The impugned order dated 22.03.2023 made by the Election Commission of Pakistan is declared to be unconstitutional, without lawful authority or jurisdiction, void ab-initio, of no legal effect and is hereby quashed,” the ruling said. “Neither the Constitution nor the law empowers the Commission to extend the date of elections beyond the 90 days period as provided in Article 224(2) of the Constitution.”
But the order was not followed as Parliament rejected the court order for snap provincial elections. Many described it as a violation of court orders and the Constitution.
The-then Parliament had demanded a full court panel consisting of all judges to hear the case.
Earlier this month, the SC said that the ECP should approach the top court to seek relief if the executive authorities were reluctant to extend assistance to the commission to fulfill its duties under Article 220 (executive authorities to assist Commission, etc) of the Constitution to hold fair elections.
