Islamabad:

A constitutional bench (CB) from the Supreme Court on Friday allocated the objections that the court’s registrar office raised to the petitions, and sought the formation of a judicial commission to start a probe to the claims that the February 8, 2024 parliamentary elections were highly rigged.

However, one of the members of the bench, Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail, asked a lawyer for an petition on how the court could constitute a judicial commission when a forum – election court – was available to meet election complaints.

A five-member CB led by Justice Aminuddin Khan on Friday took the petitions filed under Article 183 (2).

When the hearing began, Justice Aminuddin Khan IMRAN’s advice asked Hamid Khan, who appeared via VideoLink if he had submitted an answer. Hamid Khan replied that he had submitted a response along with additional documents, including details from Quetta Lawyer’s Explosion Commission.

Justice Khan noted that the Court had taken SUO MOTU message about the case at the time “but now it seems that the authority to take SUO Motu message may no longer exist”.

Hamid Khan replied that the decision of the ten-member bench in the MEMO Commission case is also available, which involved significant legal discussion.

Justice Jamal Mandokhail noted that in both Memogate and Quetta lawyers’ incident’s events, no alternative judicial forums were available. He questioned how a constitutional bench could create a new forum when alternatives are already found.

Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar asked Khan how many choices are currently pending in the right to vote. “If your argument is accepted, the whole process will stop and all electoral cases need to be canceled,” he said.

After the consultation, CB subsequently deposed the objections raised by the registrar office and ordered to assign numbers to the petitions. The case was postponed for an indefinite period.