Pervez Elahi, the head of the PML-Q, has petitioned the Supreme Court to overturn Dost Mazari’s decision over the Punjab chief minister election.
The hearing of this constitutional crisis is being held in the Supreme Court’s Lahore registry by a three-judge panel that includes Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial, Justice Ijaz Ul Ahsan, and Justice Munib Akhtar.
At the beginning of the hearing, PTI’s attorney Barrister Ali Zafar informed the court that the province’s chief minister was re-elected during yesterday’s Punjab Assembly session.
The lawyer was questioned by Justice Ahsan about the number of lawmakers present during the session, and he said that 370 members of the assembly were there.
According to Zafar, Elahi received 186 votes and Hamza received 179, hence the PML-Q leader is the chief minister in accordance with Pakistani law.
According to Zafar, the SC’s opinion in the May ruling specifies that the parliamentary party can instruct members on who to vote for. The parliamentary party of the PML-Q opted to support Elahi, but Mazari still disregarded 10 PML-Q votes.
“They ignored the parliamentary party’s decision,” Zafar said.
The chief justice then ruled that notices should be sent to all parties involved, including the chief minister, deputy speaker, and attorney general of Punjab, so they can present their arguments.
We wish to personally hear from the deputy speaker. Only the deputy speaker can tell us which paragraph he was referring to,” Justice Bandial said.
The top court has also sent notifications to the chief secretary of Punjab, Hamza Shahbaz, and the advocate general for Punjab.
The deputy speaker should appear in court with the necessary paperwork and not be “frightened,” according to CJP Bandial, since this is “simply a legal procedure.”
“The matter in issue seems more likely to be a controversy regarding the proper understanding or comprehension of the statement of law in our aforesaid judgement (paragraph 3 in Article 63A’s order) rather than of interpretation as such of a constitutional provision,” the short written order read.
What happened on the day of the election?
Pervez Elahi suffered a significant setback when the deputy speaker rejected 10 of the PML-votes, Q’s citing the supreme court’s ruling in the presidential reference over the interpretation of Article 63A. This opened the door for Hamza Shahbaz to keep his position as chief minister.
Elahi, the candidate for the opposition (PTI and PML-Q), was able to garner 186 votes, but after the deputy speaker’s decision, the PML-Q leader only obtained 176 votes, while Hamza received 179.
