News Desk |
The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) requested the Supreme Court on Thursday, 11th April to dismiss its February 6th verdict on the 2017 Faizabad sit-in by the Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), accusing the author judge of being ‘biased’.
Federal Railways Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed also approached the SC, seeking deletion of his name from the judgment on the November 2017 TLP sit-in which had halted life in the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad for 20 days.
The petition was moved by PTI secretary general Arshad Dad.
The Supreme Court on February 6th had announced the verdict on the suo motu case of the 2017 Faizabad sit-in staged by the Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) and had instructed the government, law enforcers, intelligence agencies and the army’s media wing to operate within their mandate.
In retrospect, on Nov 22, 2018 a two-judge SC bench comprising Justice Qazi Faez Isa and Justice Musheer Alam had reserved its judgment and closed the hearing of the case that was initiated on a suo motu on Nov 21, 2017 ─ after dishing out severe criticism to the attorney general, media regulator and other stakeholders.
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In its conclusions to the judgment, the court directed the federal and provincial governments to monitor and prosecute those advocating hate, extremism and terrorism. The PTI government’s petition said that “The learned author judge has had such an extreme conviction about the 2014 PTI-PAT dharna at Islamabad and the role of the petitioner and its members that he dragged in the reference of the 2014 sit-in into the matter,”.
The petition was moved by PTI secretary general Arshad Dad. “Thus the petitioner has a reasonable apprehension that the author judge was allegedly biased,” the petition contended. Citing the code of conduct of the judges, the petition argued that the author judge stood disqualified to remain a judge of the superior courts since he had allegedly violated Article III of the code, which suggested that judges should be above reproach, and to keep his conduct in all things, official and private, free from impropriety.
This article was written by Talha ul Huda and was edited by Sana Mushtaq.