PTI's party poll review plea rejected

ISLAMABAD:

The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf's (PTI) review appeal against its January 13 verdict, which upheld the Election Commission of Pakistan's (ECP) decision to invalidate PTI's intra-party election.

A three-member bench led by Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa and including Justice Musarrat Hilali and Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar turned down the PTI lawyer's request not to hear the appeal now because of the passage of the 26th Constitutional Amendment.

It its ruling the court declared that no error had been identified in its earlier decision. It upheld the January 13 verdict regarding the PTI intra-party election and dismissed the revision appeal.

During the hearing, Advocate Ali Zafar argued that with the passage of the 26th Constitutional Amendment, the court should not hear this case now. However, the chief justice replied: "We do not know anything about this yet".

PTI lawyer Hamid Khan pointed out that they had applied for the formation of a larger bench on the review appeal. The chief justice asked how could such a bench be formed to hear the review appeal?

Hamid Khan referred to the majority judgment of the full court regarding reserved seats case. The chief justice told the lawyer that he was citing a decision against which a review appeal was pending, therefore, the bench would not comment further on the case.

The chief justice remarked that the apex court's decision was given on January 13 and the review appeal was filed on February 16. So from January 13 to February 16, the decision was recognised, he said, adding that the court would not look into the events later.

At one point, the PTI lawyer said that he did not want to argue this case, as he wanted to avoid saying anything. The chief justice, in reply, told the lawyer that whatever he had to say on television screens, he should say it to his [chief justice's] face.

Justice Hilali remarked that it was not like the PTI doing this to get sympathy by claiming that the party was deprived of the 'Bat' – its election symbol. She added that even when the PTI founder was the prime minister, the intra-party elections were not held.

Justice Mazhar remarked no one had challenged Section 215 of the Election Act, saying that Article 17 could not be reviewed in isolation. He added that if there was a dispute, Section 215 would have been challenged.

He said that PTI's constitution concerning intra-party elections was very clear, adding that no other political party had such a transparent constitution. Towards the end of the hearing, Hamid Khan said that "we have objection of bias" against the bench.

The chief justice replied that PTI had not raised this issue in its written application and the court would not accept mere verbal talk. He advised the PTI lawyer to keep the court separate from politics. Justice Hilali also said that "we do not know why we are accused of biase, tell us the reason".

Later, the court ruled that no error had been identified in its earlier decision, therefore, the revision appeal was dismissed. The court upheld the January 13 verdict on PTI intra-party election.