The Supreme Court has decided that the notes of dissent by a judge in any matter would be made public only after the approval of the head of that particular bench, sources told The Express Tribune on Monday.
According to the sources, the dissenting note written by Justice Ayesha Malik and Justice Aqeel Abbasiregarding review petitions challenging the Supreme Court's July 12, 2024, verdict on the allocation of reserved seats in the National Assembly and provincial assemblieswill be released only after approval from the head of the Constitutional Bench (CB), Justice Aminuddin Khan.
In the past, if a judge dissented at the beginning of a case and left the bench, the dissenting opinion used to be made public on the Supreme Court's website. This was a common practice during the previous chief justices.
As per the procedure, if a judge wrote a dissenting note, the IT Department of the Supreme Court would upload it on the website immediately. This practice was also followed during the tenure of former chief justice Umar Ata Bandial.
Recently, Justice Malik and Justice Abbasi had dismissed the review appeals against the apex court's reserved seats decision on the first hearing of the case before the CB. The two judges sent a joint dissent note for its uploading on the Supreme Court website.
However, in a letter written to Chief Justice Yahya Afridi, Justice Malik said that the dissent of the two judges was sent to the IT department on the Supreme Court website but it had not been uploaded. An 11-member CB headed by Justice Khan will hear the case on Tuesday (today).
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