Islamabad: Minister for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb Tuesday said the three-member Supreme Court bench’s decision on the Punjab Assembly deputy speaker’s ruling on the chief minister election would “push the country and the nation towards further chaos, anarchy and polarization”.
“A decision was given on Monday, which, in anticipation, made today’s verdict controversial. Most of the people, including civil society, legal fraternity, representatives of the bar associations and legal experts did not accept the decision on rejection of the plea about the formation of a full-court bench for interpretation of a constitutional issue,” she said while addressing a news conference.
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Flanked by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leaders Malik Ahmad Khan and Atta Tarar, she claimed that the decision on the interpretation of the Constitution would have been otherwise if the full-court bench was formed.
The minister said the ouster of Hamza Shehbaz from power would not affect the PML-N as Punjab’s mandate belonged to Nawaz Sharif and would remain so in future. “The PML-N has no doubt in this regard.”
“A person, who does not have the mandate, will now rule Punjab,” she said, claiming that more than half of the citizenry did not accept the decision.
Marriyum said all the political parties demanded the full court as it was a matter of the supremacy of the Constitution and parliament.
“In the opinion of some [people], there would be no justice done by the three-member bench,” she said, adding the rejection of the full-court bench’s plea already showed a “lack of confidence over the 3-member bench”.
“Lack of confidence was also expressed in the Supreme Court when our lawyers boycotted the [case] proceedings, which manifested that the decision would not be accepted by the people and parties to the case as it cannot happen that a person, who was once imposed on the country in 2018 after the failure of the RTS, will again rule over Punjab,” the minister maintained.
The votes of 25 members of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf were not counted during Punjab’s CM election as PTI chief Imran Khan had barred them from voting for Hamza Shehbaz by writing a letter as the party head.
While during the run-off elections, Chaudhry Shujaat’s letter as the party chief containing directives for the 10 members of Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) whose votes were not counted following the deputy speaker’s ruling, which, the minister claimed, was given in line with the apex court’s decision.
“There were different interpretations of the similar letters of Imran Khan and Chaudhry Shujaat,” she added.
Marriyum reiterated that the 10 votes of PML-Q were not counted in light of the apex court’s earlier decision.
“The full-court bench’s formation was demanded after it was anticipated that the letter of Chaudhry Shujaat, which was similar to that of Imran Khan, would not be acceptable,” she claimed.
Citing the Panama Papers case decision against the three-time Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, she said, “The seeds of economic destruction, hunger, poverty, unemployment, violence and mayhem were sown in the country after that day.”
Today’s decision, she claimed, would have the same sort of effects on the country such as more “chaos” and “anarchy”.
“The formation of full-court over the interpretation of this case was our demand and will remain so.”
