The Supreme Court on Saturday constituted a three-judge bench to take up a constitutional petition of Minhajul Quran International (MQI) chief Dr Tahirul Qadri. He has sought court's directions for reconstitution of Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).
The bench led by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and comprising Justice Gulzar Ahmed and Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed will conduct the hearing of the petition from Monday (tomorrow). Qadri filed a petition under Article 184(3) of the Constitution, making Federation of Pakistan through Ministry of Law and Justice, the Election Commission of Pakistan through CEC, Federal Secretary Law and Parliamentary Affairs and Parliamentary Committee of National Assembly respondents.
He prayed: "A direction to the federation of Pakistan may graciously be issued on an urgent basis to appoint the Chief Election Commissioner and all other members of the ECP immediately in accordance with the procedure laid down in Article 213 (2) (a) and 218 (2) (a) and (b) of the Constitution of Pakistan, so that the forthcoming election may not be delayed on any pretext and is conducted, fairly and in accordance with law".
According to the petitioner, clause 2A of Article 213 envisages a mandatory hearing by the Parliamentary Committee before confirmation of anyone's appointment as CEC and other members of election commission. In his petition, Qadri cited the case of former Justice Syed Deedar Hussain Shah's appointment as Chairman National Accountability Bureau (NAB) wherein the apex court had invalidated the appointment on grounds that leader of the opposition had not been consulted for the appointment; hence a mandatory requirement remained unfulfilled.
Dr Qadri contended that in order to invoke the relevant provisions of the Constitution it needed to be ascertained whether the Parliamentary Committee had called for hearing the nominees for the post of CEC or members of the Commission before its recommendation for their confirmation. He requested the court to procure the record of proceedings of the Parliamentary Committee for perusal of the matter in hand.