ISLAMABAD (MNN); A larger bench of the newly formed Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) is set to hear on Tuesday a petition filed by PTI’s Salman Akram Raja seeking the reversal of a court order related to election tribunals formed to resolve disputes arising from last year’s general elections.
According to the supplementary cause list on the FCC’s website, Chief Justice Aminuddin Khan has constituted a five-member bench comprising Justices Aamer Farooq, Ali Baqar Najafi, Muhammad Karim Khan Agha, Rozi Khan Barrech, and Arshad Hussain Shah to hear the petition, originally filed in the Supreme Court on July 22, 2024.
The review petition has now been fixed before the FCC, established under the 27th Amendment, for November 24.
In his petition, Raja requested the Supreme Court to revisit its July 4, 2024 order suspending the Lahore High Court’s notification for constituting eight election tribunals in Punjab. He argued that the order exposed the adjudication process of election disputes in Punjab to arbitrary decisions by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).
The July 4 order of a five-judge SC bench, headed by then-Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa, had also directed meaningful consultation between LHC Chief Justice Aalia Neelum and Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja regarding the formation of the tribunals.
The review petition contended that the Supreme Court did not provide guidance on the meaning and scope of the term “consultation” under Section 140(3) of the Elections Act, 2017, leaving the LHC Chief Justice’s role in consultation with the ECP unclear.
The petition highlighted that the SC in the 1996 Al-Jehad Trust case had already defined the scope of “consultation,” which has consistently been followed in judicial appointments. It argued that the LHC Chief Justice’s opinion regarding the suitability of a person’s appointment as a judge should receive the highest consideration.
It further stated that the LHC correctly held that the ECP cannot arbitrarily disregard names of judges submitted by the Chief Justice through a letter dated April 4, 2024. The review petition emphasized that the ECP’s claim of entitlement to reject any names without justification lacked any legal basis.
Raja also pointed out that during the Supreme Court hearing, two members of the bench rejected the ECP’s claim that it could receive panels of judges and exercise discretion in appointments for election tribunals. Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail had asked the ECP counsel to provide a legal basis for this claim, which the counsel could not.
The petition concludes that there is no provision in law allowing the ECP to demand panels of judges for each election tribunal to selectively approve or reject candidates.
