Supreme Court to start fixing lifetime disqualification 'puzzle' on Tuesday
Pakistan
A seven-member bench will determine whether the earlier court verdict or the Election Act is supreme
ISLAMABAD (Dunya News/Web Desk) – A seven-member Supreme Court bench will hear the lifetime disqualification case on Tuesday as the country is heading towards the much-awaited general elections on Feb 8, with three-time prime minister Nawaz Sharif in the race for a record fourth term.
Chief Justice Faez Isa will head the bench which also comprises Justice Mansoor Ali Shah, Justice Yahya Afridi, Justice Aminud Din, Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail, Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar and Justice Musarrat Hilali.
Although the nomination papers of Nawaz from both constituencies NA-15 and NA-130 were accepted by the respective returning officers, an election tribunal has been moved against him in Lahore.
The objections are raised in the case of NA-130 in Lahore on the grounds of his lifetime disqualification under Article 62 (1) f of the Constitution in July 2017, which ended his third five-year term to yet another premature end. Previously, he had fallen a prey to the “Kakar formula” in 1993 and later a Pervez Musharraf-led coup in 1999.
Interestingly, similar objections were raised by the rival PTI lawyers in Mansehra in the case of NA-15 at the initial stage of filing of nomination papers. But the returning officer rejected these on the basis of the changes introduced in the Election Act 2017.
Earlier, Chief Justice Isa had wondered last month how a person could still remain disqualified for life after completing the sentence and added that the Supreme Court had two different opinions on lifetime disqualification.
The remarks came during the hearing of a case heard by a Supreme Court three-member bench headed by the chief justice, which pertains to the lifetime disqualification of Sardar Meer Badshah Qaisrani – a former member of Punjab Assembly – before the 2018 elections.
During the hearing, the chief justice took notice of the contradiction between the Supreme Court’s judgement on lifetime disqualification and the amendment made in the Election Act by parliament during the Shehbaz Sharif-led coalition government, which fixed the disqualification period at five years.
As a result, the court ordered to place the matter before the committee which also includes two senior most judges – Justice Sardar Tariq Masood and Justice Ijazul Ahsan – to constitute a larger bench and fix the hearing after the winter vacation.
