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Advocate Ali Zafar, representing President Arif Alvi, questioned the court’s jurisdiction behind taking up the opposition’s case. Zafar said that just like judicial proceedings could not be debated in the parliament, courts, too, could not interfere in the proceedings of the house.
“Unfortunately, the petitioners want the case to be heard as an appeal against the ruling of the deputy speaker,” he said, adding that the case was tantamount to meddling in the “prerogatives” of the National Assembly.
Lawyer Babar Awan, who represented Imran’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI), told the court that fresh elections were the only solution to the political crisis that had enveloped the country.
Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial, who had filed a suo motu case immediately after the President dissolved the National Assembly on PM Imran’s recommendation, asked Awan whether the parliament’s deputy speaker could issue a ruling that was not on the day’s agenda by bypassing the constitution. He observed that the debate so far comprised accusations and not findings.
“Can the deputy speaker announce such a ruling without presenting the facts?” Chief Justice Bandial asked, pointing out that this was the constitutional point on which the court had to make a decision.
The apex court also asked Awan about the minutes of a National Security Committee meeting that discussed a letter that Imran claims is evidence of a foreign conspiracy to oust his government.
Chief Justice Bandial adjourned the hearing till Thursday after counsels for the PM and the President completed their arguments.
Separately, through his counsels in the suo motu case, Imran submitted a statement requesting the apex court to set up a Memogate-style commission to probe the alleged foreign conspiracy to topple his government. “It is the genuine aspiration/desire of the answering respondent (Imran) that this honourable court, which has taken cognisance of this matter, should hold inquisitorial proceedings, as done in the ‘Memogate case’, and constitute a high-powered commission of judges,” he said.
“The said commission must analyse the incriminating evidence, take notice of the blatant horse-trading conducted by these corrupt politicians, some of whose family members are absconders of law and have taken refuge in safe heavens in the west.”
A group of more than 100 academicians, civil society representatives, journalists and citizens have written an open letter to Chief Justice Bandial “to put forth our grave concerns over the prevailing political and constitutional crisis in the country”.
“We have noted with enormous distress the aggressive and contemptuous manner in which the constitution of Pakistan was violated by the outgoing government,” the letter states. “This action has brought us to the ignominious juncture where the ‘doctrine of necessity’ is again being invoked by some to suspend due process and violate the fundamental right to vote on the basis of unsubstantiated claims of alleged foreign interference in the political process. Today, we pin all our hopes on your lordship to uphold the constitution and stand by the people of Pakistan in this hour of need.”
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