Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf on Saturday filed a review petition against the Supreme Court’s decision to restore the National Assembly and federal cabinet and set aside Deputy Speaker National Assembly Qasim Suri to dismiss the no-trust motion against Prime Minister Imran Khan.
Adviser to Prime Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Babar Awan and advocate Muhammad Azhar Siddique filed the petition urging the top court to revoke its April 7 decision.
The apex court’s five-member larger bench on Thursday restored the National Assembly and federal cabinet. It further set aside the deputy speaker’s ruling to dismiss the no trust motion.
The Supreme Court also directed the National Assembly speaker to hold a session on Saturday (today).
The petition requested the apex court to “kindly review, recall and set aside the impugned order dated April 7 … which is based on errors floating on the surface,” as well as suspend the operation of the impugned order.
It argued that the order in the absence of detailed reasons was not a judicial determination according to Article 184(3) of the Constitution which states that an issue needs to be of public importance if the court has to have jurisdiction on it.
Referring to the court’s detailed orders of how today’s NA proceedings should be conducted, the petition said the apex court’s bench could not forcefully “direct discharge of constitutional obligations, by office holders of constitutional posts under the Constitution”.
It said that giving a timetable for how the NA session should proceed and dictating the speaker to act in a particular manner amounted to interfering in the affairs of the lower house and violating the Constitution.
The petition also argued that the apex court had “erred” by not announcing any verdict in the presidential reference seeking the court’s opinion on Article 63-A of the Constitution. It added that in the absence of any determination, the court had “prejudiced” the reference’s proceedings and “blemished the entire proceedings” of today’s NA session.
The move comes as the National Assembly session, in line with the Supreme Court’s ruling, is underway with the no-trust motion on its agenda.
