The Supreme Court has dismissed a petition filed against the proposed constitutional amendments after the petitioners requested to withdraw their case.
A three-member bench, headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faez Isa, presided over the hearing on Thursday.
Hamid Khan, a senior lawyer representing the petitioners, appeared before the court and formally requested the withdrawal of the application. “We want to withdraw this application,” Khan stated.
The CJP remarked that the petition had been filed by six lawyers, and asked whether Hamid Khan’s services were engaged solely for withdrawing it. “Were your services hired only to withdraw the application?” the chief justice asked. He further expressed that he was sure the petitioners must have formally engaged the counsel, questioning whether they had filed a baseless application that now they wanted to withdraw it.
CJP Isa also sought clarification on whether the petitioners were withdrawing the appeal against the registrar’s objection or the original application. Hamid Khan confirmed that both the application and the appeal were being withdrawn.
Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa also hinted at his upcoming retirement during a brief conversation with lawyer Abid Zuberi. He noted, “You had one more application,” but added, “I did not fix it during my tenure. It will now be fixed after my term ends.”
Last week, the Sindh High Court had also dismissed a petition filed by lawyers challenging the proposed constitutional amendments, stating that the court could not intervene in a matter that had yet to be finalised.
During the hearing, Chief Justice Muhammad Shafi Siddiqui remarked that the amendments had not even been passed yet, so the judiciary had no grounds to interfere. He emphasized that elected representatives in the National Assembly, on behalf of the country’s 240 million citizens, were responsible for legislating.
“How can the court intervene when there is no amendment yet?” the chief justice asked, stressing that it was premature to question the legality of the proposal. “How can we determine before the amendment whether it is in accordance with the law or not?”
The petition, filed by Ghulam Rehman Korai and others, sought judicial review of the proposed 26th constitutional amendment. The lawyers argued for the court’s intervention, calling for the draft amendment to be presented before Bar Councils and Bar Associations for review before it is debated in the assembly.
