Islamabad:
The Supreme Court decided that the dissent by a judge in any case would only be made public after the approval of the chief of this private bench, sources told L’Express PK Press Club on Monday.
According to sources, the dissident note written by judge Ayesha Malik and judge Aqeel Abbasi – considering the revision petitions contesting the Supreme Court on July 12, 2024, verdict on the distribution of seats reserved for the National Assembly and the provincial assemblies – will only be published after the approval of the head of the constitutional bench (CB), Judge Aminuddin Khan.
In the past, if a judge has dissident at the start of a case and left the bench, dissident opinion was made public on the Supreme Court website. It was a common practice during the main chief judges.
According to the procedure, if a judge wrote a dissident note, the IT department of the Supreme Court would immediately download it from the website. This practice was also followed during the mandate of former chief judge Umar Ata Bandial.
Recently, judge Malik and judge Abbasi had rejected the calls for review against the decision of the Supreme Court reserved seats on the first hearing of the case before the CB. The two judges sent a joint dissent note for downloading the Supreme Court website.
However, in a letter written to the chief judge Yahya Afridi, judge Malik said that the dissent of the two judges had been sent to the IT department on the Supreme Court website but that it had not been downloaded. A CB of 11 members led by judge Khan will hear the case on Tuesday (today).
