ISLAMABAD: On Friday, former Punjab chief minister Hamza Shehbaz Sharif appealed to the Supreme Court to review and overturn its July 26 order appointing Chaudhry Parvez Elahi as the legitimate leader of the province despite the fact that he had secretly received 186 votes in the July 22 run-off election as opposed to 179.
The review petition, which was submitted thru the senior counsel Mansoor Usman Awan, also asked for the creation of a full court to rule on the current plea involving the application and meaning of Article 63A of the Constitution, which deals with the defection clause, as well as other related issues.
The review petition argued that the top court’s July 26 order failed to recognise that 11 SC judges, rather than eight, had stated in the 2015 District Bar Association, Rawalpindi, judgement that failing to follow the party leader’s instructions regarding casting votes under Article 63A(1)(b)(i)-(iii) only resulted in the parliamentarian being removed.
According to the supreme court’s reasoning in its July 26 judgement, just eight of the 17 judges that heard the 2015 case to assess the applicability of Article 63A of the 18th Constitutional Amendment held that the party leader had been given the authority to cast the vote.
