KHUDAYAR MOHLA

ISLAMABAD: A 17-judge full court of the Supreme Court shall announce its reserved verdict in pleas filed against 18th and 21st Constitutional Amendments on Wednesday (today).

During January, identical pleas were filed in the Supreme Court against establishment of military courts to try terrorists and extremists under the 21st Constitutional Amendment. Similarly, almost five years ago on September 30, 2010 a full court of the apex court had reserved its judgment on the pleas filed against the 18th Constitutional Amendment.

The bench led by the Chief Justice Nasirul Mulk continuously heard the matter for four months on the identical pleas filed against 18th and 21st Constitutional Amendments and reserved its verdict on June 21, 2015.

The court had clubbed the petitions filed against 18th Constitution Amendment with the matter of 21st Constitutional Amendment.

The petitioners argued that the 18th Amendment has created imbalance in the system and that the Parliament has no power to change the basic structure of the constitution.

Meanwhile concluding his arguments, the Attorney General for Pakistan contended that the apex court has nothing to do with the Parliamentary business so constitutional amendments could not be declared null and void. Likewise, all the provincial law officers had endorsed the arguments of the Attorney General for Pakistan.

The full court led by the Chief Justice Nasirul Mulk comprises Justice Jawwad S Khawaja, Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali, Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa, Justice Samad Jalal Osmany, Justice Amir Hani Muslim, Justice Amir Hani Muslim, Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan, Justice Ijaz Ahmed Chaudhry, Justice Gulzar Ahmed, Justice Azmat Saeed Sheikh, Justice Iqbal Hameedur Rehman, Justice Mushir Alam, Justice Dost Muhammad Khan, Justice Umar Ata Bandial, Justice Qazi Faez Isa and Justice Maqbool Baqar.

After over one month and thirteen days of reserving the judgment in the matter, the 17-judge full court shall announce the verdict on August 5 (today).