Intra-court
ISLAMABAD: On Tuesday, a five-member bench of the Supreme Court is scheduled to review the federal government’s intra-court appeal challenging the apex court’s decision about the National Accountability Bureau’s (NAB) amendments to the law.
This marks the inaugural intra-court appeal following the implementation of the Supreme Court (Practice and Procedure) Act of 2023.
Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa is heading the bench, comprising Justice Amin-Ud-Din Khan, Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail, Justice Athar Minallah, and Justice Hasan Azhar Rizvi.
Notably, Imran Khan, the Chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, had contested the NAB amendments in 2022.
In a prior development, a three-member panel, chaired by former Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial and consisting of Justice Ijaz Ul Ahsan and Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah, conducted over 50 hearings in the case.
They ruled by a 2-1 majority on September 15 to declare the first and second NAB amendments of 2022 null and void. This verdict reinstated corruption cases against public office-holders by striking down specific amendments made by the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) government to the National Accountability Ordinance (NAO) of 1999, deeming it contrary to the public interest rights enshrined in the Constitution.
Following this decision, the federal government filed an appeal under Section 5 of the Supreme Court law against the apex court’s ruling. The court also issued notices to the lawyers involved.
The government argued that the Supreme Court had exceeded its authority by overturning a law passed by the parliament and amending the NAB law.
They further contended that the parliament had the competence to legislate and had indeed passed a law amending the NAB law.
They acknowledged the court’s power to set aside legislation that violates fundamental rights but asserted that the NAB law amendments did not infringe upon citizens’ fundamental rights.
In the aftermath of the verdict, the NAB reopened cases against prominent political figures, including former prime ministers.
In June of the previous year, Imran Khan had submitted a petition to the Supreme Court under Article 184(3) of the Constitution, seeking the annulment of the amendments as they were deemed “ultra vires to the Constitution.”
The court invalidated various NAB law amendments, including those limiting NAB’s jurisdiction to cases involving over Rs500 million and permitting acquitted individuals to claim plea bargain amounts.
The judgment, written by former Chief Justice Bandial, found Imran Khan’s petition maintainable due to violations of Articles 9, 14, 24 (protection of property rights), and 25 (equality of citizens) of the Constitution.
It also argued that these amendments had a widespread impact on the public, leading to poverty, a decreased quality of life, and injustice due to the unlawful diversion of state resources from public development projects to private use.
