The Supreme Court (SC) of Pakistan has announced the verdict in the election case for the Chief Minister (CM) of Punjab. According to the details, a three-member bench of the Supreme Court (SC) on Tuesday declared the ruling of the Deputy Speaker Dost Muhammad Mazari as null and void and ordered that Pervez Elahi is the Punjab Chief Minister (CM).
The verdict comes after three days of proceedings – Saturday, Monday, and Tuesday – after lawyers from all three parties presented arguments to the three-member bench of the Supreme Court (SC) headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Umar Ata Bandial and comprising of Justice Munib Akhtar and Justice Ijazul Ahsan.
The apex court has directed the Punjab Chief Secretary to issue Pervez Elahi’s CM notification today and ordered former Punjab Chief Minister Hamza Shehbaz to vacate the Office.
It is pertinent to mention that coalition government had asked the formation of a bench to take up the matter as they did not want “bench-fixing.” However, the Supreme Court decided not to form the full court bench, saying that same bench would hear the case.
As a result of the decision, the ruling coalition government and the Pakistan Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) decided to boycott the apex court’s hearing.
It bears mentioning that Hamza Shehbaz was elected as the Chief Minister of Punjab after bagging 179 votes against 186 votes received by PML-Q’s Pervez Elahi, the joint member of PTI and PML-Q, after Deputy Speaker Dost Mohammad Mazari rejected 10 votes cast by the party.
Read more: Hamza Shehbaz Re-Elected As Punjab CM after Deputy Speaker rejects PML-Q votes.
