LAHORE: The Supreme Court is hearing PML-Q leader Pervez Elahi’s petition against Deputy Speaker Dost Mazari’s ruling in the Punjab chief minister’s election.
A three-member bench — headed by Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial, and comprising Justice Ijaz Ul Ahsan and Justice Munib Akhtar — is holding the hearing at the Supreme Court’s Lahore registry.
At the outset of the hearing, PTI’s counsel Barrister Ali Zafar informed the court that during yesterday’s Punjab Assembly session, a re-election of the province’s chief minister took place.
Justice Ahsan asked the lawyer how many lawmakers were present during the session, to which he responded that 370 members of the assembly were in attendance.
Zafar argued that Elahi secured 186 votes and Hamza bagged 179 votes, therefore, in line with the Constitution of Pakistan, the PML-Q leader is the chief minister.
The SC’s opinion in the May order, Zafar said, states that the parliamentary party can give directions to lawmakers on whom to vote for, and the PML-Q’s parliamentary party decided to back Elahi, but despite that, Mazari dismissed 10 PML-Q votes.
“They ignored the parliamentary party’s decision,” Zafar said.
At this, the chief justice said that all the relevant parties — deputy speaker, chief minister, and Punjab attorney-general — should be issued notices so they can provide their version.
“We wish to personally hear from the deputy speaker. Only the deputy speaker can tell us which paragraph he was referring to,” Justice Bandial said.
The deputy speaker has been summoned by the court at 2pm.
In addition, the top court has sent notices to Chief Minister Punjab Hamza Shahbaz, the Punjab chief secretary and the advocate general for Punjab.
CJP Bandial said that the deputy speaker should come to the court with all the relevant documents and not be “frightened” as this is “just a legal procedure”.
The CJP then adjourned the hearing till 2pm.
