- Justice Mandokhail, Justice Mazhar attended committee’s meeting.
- Meeting held to discuss matters related to constitutional bench.
- Justice Ayesha will not be available on Nov 14, 15, says SC.
ISLAMABAD: The recently-enacted constitutional bench, constituted under the 26th Amendment, will start hearing cases from November 14, according to a statement issued by the Supreme Court on Tuesday.
The decision was taken during the meeting of a three-member committee — constituted under Article 191A (4) of the Constitution — chaired by Justice Amin-ud-Din Khan, who is also the head of the seven-judge constitutional bench.
On Nov 5, the Judicial Commission of Pakistan (JCP) appointed Justice Amin-ud-Din — who ranks fourth in seniority among Supreme Court judges — as head of the seven-judge constitutional bench by a majority vote of seven to five, with Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Yahya Afridi among the dissenting members.
Today’s meeting was attended by Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail and Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar, who participated through a telephone call from Karachi.
According to a press release — a copy of which is available with Geo News, the purpose of the meeting was to discuss matters for the formation of the constitutional bench.
During the meeting, the Registrar’s Office apprised the committee of the pending cases that fall within the jurisdiction of the constitutional bench.
“After thorough consideration, the committee resolved that priority shall be accorded to the oldest cases,” the statement said.
Furthermore, it said Justice Ayesha Malik will not be available on Nov 14 and 15 and “a bench comprising all available judges shall be constituted to proceed with cases on these dates.” The SC Registrar’s Office has been directed to list these cases accordingly for hearing before the Bench.
The bench will include Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail, Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar, Justice Hasan Azhar Rizvi, Justice Musarrat Hilali and Justice Naeem Akhtar Afghan.
The next meeting of the committee will be held on Nov 13 at 12:30pm after Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar arrives in Islamabad.
A day earlier, the SC constituted a three-judge committee to fix cases, issue court rosters, form benches, and decide weekly caseload for its recently established constitutional bench.
It was also decided that colour coding of the cases shall be done, which are clearly falling under the purview of Article 191A of the Constitution and Senior Research Officer Mazhar Ali Khan had been given task to scrutinise the cases arising out of Article 199 of the Constitution.
