Islamabad:
Judge Amicin Khan observed that the Supreme Court is bound by the Constitution and can revoke any unconstitutional verdict.
Judge Khan made this remark on Thursday while leading a constitutional bench (CB) of 11 members of the Supreme Court which hears revision requests filed against the verdict of July 2024 of the SC in the case of reserved seats.
On July 12, 2024, a complete bench of the Supreme Court through a majority of 8 to 5 raised the PTI as a parliamentary party, noting that 39 of the legislators who had submitted certificates of their affiliation with the PTI with their application documents were already PTI legislators.
The SC judged that the remaining 41 legislators who had not submitted the affiliation certificates at the time of the submission of appointment documents could now do it within 15 days. The government had subsequently deposited requests against the verdict.
During Thursday’s hearing, judge Muhammad Ali Mazhar wondered if the Constitution demanded that the reserved seats should not remain vacant. The lawyer for a petitioner Salman Akram Raja replied that the court had already declared that these seats could not be left unpt.
Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail asked what fundamental rights had been violated by not going to the seats reserved for the PTI, while Judge Naeem Akhtar Afghan asked whether the court could fulfill a political vacuum on its own initiative. The court will resume a hearing of the case today.
