Dual offices: Is a 4-member LHC bench order binding on an SHC full bench?

LHC ruled that Zardari cannot hold political meetings which should be held by Gillani.

KARACHI: Seized with the hearing of a constitutional petition filed by an old Pakistan Peoples Party worker, Rasheed A Akhund, questioning the dual offices held by President Asif Ali Zardari as party co-chairperson, a division bench of the Sindh High Court (SHC) asked the petitioner to enlighten the court on whether a judgment or order passed by a four-member bench of the Lahore High Court is binding on a three-member SHC bench or not.

The court was earlier informed about the judgment by the LHC which restrained Asif Ali Zardari, the president of Pakistan, from holding the second office of the co-chairperson of the ruling PPP. The LHC ruled that the respondent, Zardari, who occupies the highest and most esteemed office of the country, shall not hold political meetings, hold meetings with officials etc. which should otherwise be held by the prime minister.

On Monday, when the challenge to the dual offices by the octogenarian lawyer came up, the bench posed a legal proposition: what would be the validity and legality of the judgment by a three-member SHC full bench in view of the judgment by a four-member LHC bench?

The bench put off the hearing indefinitely.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 9^th, 2011.