In his arguments before the Supreme Court bench, PML-Q chief Chaudhry Shujaat’s counsel Advocate Salahuddin confirmed that he [Shujaat] wrote a letter to his party lawmakers. “The party is mine and the letter is also mine,” Salahuddin quoted Shujaat as saying. The CJP asked the lawyer to limit his arguments to the formation of a full bench as the PML-Q president had not been made a party to the case. “I want a full court to be formed,” Salahuddin said. The deputy speaker also relied on Article 63(A), said Barrister Zafar. “The court has already given an opinion on Article 63(A) after detailed hearings and its judicial interpretation is very clear and unambiguous.” “The party leader has to give a declaration according to the instructions of the parliamentary party,” said Elahi’s lawyer, adding that “accepting the directions given by the parliamentary party is democratic.” The barrister said that those having different opinions in a party meeting are bound by the decision, says a news report. CJP Bandial stopped Advocate Zafar from giving judicial notices.
“W e are not listening to you about the merits of the case, tell us whether a full court should be formed or not?” asked the CJP. To this, Barrister Zafar said that it was the chief justice’s choice to form a full court. “Should the full court stop all the other cases to hear a single case? The full court has been formed only in three or four cases in the last 25 years,” he added. He said that the request to form a full court has been rejected in 15 cases in the past years. The chief justice said that the court reduced the burden of pending cases by continuous hearings on routine benches.
