Daily Times

The Supreme Court Thursday reserved its decision on Justice Qazi Faez Isa and top bars’ plea regarding inclusion of three majority judges in the bench hearing the review petitions against the June 19 order.

Talking to TLTP, former President of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) Kamran Murtaza said “It’s a settled principle that court would have to decide any miscellaneous application before deciding the main matter in a case so without addressing the concerns, raised about hearing of review petition, the court cannot adjudicate the matter in hand”.

A six-judge larger bench, headed by Justice Umar Ata Bandial, reserved the decision where SCBA’ incumbent President Abdul Lateef Afridi was unable to appear before the bench due to ill health.

Wife of the sitting judge of the Supreme Court Ms.Sarina Isa is among the petitioners who had challenged a split order announced by a Supreme Court ten-judge bench over pleas filed against a presidential reference that sought Justice Qazi Faez Isa’s removal due to his failure to mention his family members’ foreign properties in his wealth tax return.

Responding to the pleas, seven of the judges of a bench in the case had referred the matter to the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) for an inquiry with directives to submit its findings to the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC).

However, in order to hear review petitions against the verdict, the Chief Justice Gulzar Ahmed formed a seven-member bench comprising all the judges who wrote the majority judgment. One of the members, Justice Faisal Arab, retired on November 03 this year and to which another bench was announced comprising the remaining six judges. Three judges – Justice Maqbool Baqar, Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah and Justice Yahya Afridi – who held the minority view were excluded from the larger bench.

At the onset of hearing on Tuesday, Ms Sarina Isa, the wife of sitting judge of the top court Justice Qazi Faez Isa, came to the rostrum along with her daughter to address the six-judge larger bench led by Justice Umar Ata Bandial. Sarina argued that the Chief Justice should be impartial saying the Chief Justice is a respondent in this case as a member of the SJC. She also raised the question whether a six-member larger bench could overturn a verdict of seven-judge bench.

Addressing every member of the six-judge bench by name, Ms Isa raised repeated the same question to which head of the bench Justice Umar Ata Bandial asked her to avoid overstepping her limits. “You should be careful while talking about the Chief Justice and the institution,” Justice Bandial observed.

Justice Bandial said the Chief Justice as the head of the institution has left the matter relating to inclusion of the three remaining judges to this larger bench. “We are just confining ourselves to your application for inclusion of the three minority judges,” he said.

Citing a number of verdicts to substantiate his claim, Muneer A Malik, counsel for Justice Qazi Faez Isa argued saying in the light of citations and Supreme Court Rules the review petition should be heard by the same bench in the same matter.