ISLAMABAD, MAR 3 (DNA): The Supreme Court has admitted Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) pleas seeking the formation of an inquiry commission for investigating the alleged rigging in the February 8, 2025 general election.
A five-member bench of the apex court headed by Justice Amin-Ud-Din Khan heard the petitions filed by PTI founder and former prime minister Khan as well as Party leader Sher Afzal Marwat against rigging in the 2024 general elections.
The ex-PM, on March 20 2024, had filed a petition under Article 184(3) of the Constitution through his counsel Hamid Khan urging the top court to constitute a judicial commission to probe the process of general elections, which allegedly rendered winners into losers and losers into winners.
In a plea filed via PTI’s Omar Ayub Khan, the PTI founder prayed to the apex court that a judicial commission, consisting of serving SC judges holding no bias towards anyone, be formed to inquire, audit and examine the manner and process of the 2024 general elections and the developments that took place thereafter of compiling false and fraudulent results rendering winners into losers and losers into winners.
He requested that all the consequential acts of forming governments at the federal and Punjab levels be immediately suspended till the result of the probe by the judicial commission appointed in this behalf are made public.
Similarly, PTI leader Marwat, who was elected MNA from National Assembly constituency NA-41 on February 23, 2024, had also filed a petition in the SC under Article 184(3) of the Constitution against alleged rigging in the February 8 polls.
Filed through his counsel Riaz Hanif Rahi, Marwat had prayed to the apex court the process of forming governments be held in abeyance till the final decision of his petition.
The Registrar’s office, however, had raised objections to the petitions. On Friday, the court asked Hamid, counsel for PTI founder, that the Registrar’s office had raised objections to the petition.
Hamid, who appeared before the court through video link, Lahore Registry however, told the court that the main objection of the Registrar’s office was that the court cannot constitute the inquiry commission to probe the alleged rigging in the 2024 elections.
The learned counsel recalled to the court that earlier, in 2012, the SC had constituted an inquiry commission in the Memogate scandal case while, during the year 2016, the court had also nominated an inquiry commission headed by Justice Qazi Faez Isa to probe the Quetta bomb blast case.
The court, however, observed that after the enactment of legislation made in 2017, it is the prerogative of the government either to constitute a commission or not.
Hamid, however, argued that in 2012 the SC recommended the formation of an inquiry commission in the Memogate case by holding that whenever, there is an issue of national importance and security, such a commission can be constituted.
The lawyer further requested the court to remove the objections, raised by the Registrar’s Office on their petition and should be heard on merit.
Similarly, Riaz Hanif Rahi, counsel for Marwat, told the court that an appeal against objection was filed which has been returned by the Registrar’s Office with the observation that the case is now fixed before the court which is no longer a chamber matter.
He contended that as the case is filed for judicial determination and cannot be dealt with on the administrative side, therefore, it be numbered and his petition be fixed and heard on merit.
Later, the court admitted to hearing both petitions after removing the objections raised by the Registrar’s Office on the petitions and directed its office to allot the numbers for both the petitions and be fixed for hearing.
The court then adjourned the matter for date-in-office (indefinite period).
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