Sharif challenges SC registrar office objections

Prays SC to fix petition for hearing before court

ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif has challenged the Supreme Court Registrar Office’s objection to his constitutional petition against the chief justice’s decision of not entertaining his petition seeking a joint trial of corruption references filed by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in line with the top court’s Panamagate case verdict.

The Registrar Office had returned Sharif’s petition for merging the three NAB references after raising objections. Later, CJP Justice Saqib Nisar had, on November 16, dismissed his appeal after maintaining the objections raised by the Registrar Office.

Thereupon the former premier, through his counsel Khawaja Haris, filed a constitutional petition with the apex court under Article 184(3), challenging Justice Nisar’s verdict.



However, the Registrar Office on December 5 returned the constitutional petition, objecting that the petitioner had not availed proper remedy through forums available to him and instead gone for filing the constitutional petition. Likewise, the office said Sharif had already exhausted all remedies in the July 28 verdict.

Now Sharif through his counsel Khawaja Haris has again challenged the objections, saying the registrar office did not specifically mention what could be ‘proper remedy’ in the given circumstances of the case.

“As a matter of fact, an appeal against the order of the Registrar, returning, inter alia, a Constitution Petition under Article 184(3) of the Constitution, is provided under Rule 3 of Order V of the Supreme Court Rules, 1980, but once such an order of the Registrar of this hon’ble Court is upheld by the learned Judge in Chambers, no further remedy is provided by the Supreme Court Rules, 1980, this being the case, the only remedy available to a person aggrieved by an order passed by a learned Single Judge in Chambers, other than in cases specified in Rule 2 of Order V, insofar as it relates to securing his fundamental rights, is by way of a Constitution Petition under Article 184(3) of the Constitution,” says the appeal.



The appeal further states that a petition, which is filed on the ground that a judgment of this court is per incurium, can neither be decided by the registrar nor by a judge in chambers, rather such a petition has to be inevitably placed before, and be adjudicated and decided by a bench of this  court.

It also questioned whether original jurisdiction of this court can be invoked in the presence of a proper/alternative remedy, is a question to be decided by the court, and the office is neither authorised to, nor is it the correct forum for decision on this question.

The appeal prayed the SC to set aside the registrar office’s order and direct it to assign a number to the constitutional petition and fix it for hearing before the court.