During the hearing of the petition by Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, Chief Justice Pakistan (CJP) Umar Ata Bandial made an important remark. According to CJP, the head of the party has to consider the opinion of the ‘parliamentary party’.
Elahi had filed the petition against the ruling of Deputy Speaker Dost Mazari, which led to Hamza Shehbaz’s re-appointment as chief minister of Punjab.
The hearing proceeded under a three-member bench, which included Justice Bandial, Ijazul Ahsan, and Munib Akhtar. The lawyer of Hamza Shehbaz, Mansoor Awan, pointed out that after the 18th Amendment all decisions of the party were taken by the leader of the party.
However, Justice Akhtar remarked that the 18th Amendment replaced the party leader with a ‘parliamentary party’ in Article 63-A. Akhtar further added that after the Amendment, Article 63-A had given authority to the parliamentary party to issue directives.
At the moment, SC has reserved the judgement on the full bench request to hear the petition of Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi. The request for a full bench was forwarded by Latif Afridi, Former President of the Supreme Court Bar.