Article 63A
Article 63A. There has been a constant media campaign blaming decision in the presidential reference no 1 of 2022 of the Supreme Court of Pakistan for the political chaos in the country, specifically referring to the elections in the Punjab assembly, in which supreme court ruled that the votes casted against the directions of the parliamentary party must not be counted.
Here’s a timeline of what transpired in the Punjab assembly.
The supreme court on the 17th of May 2022 ruled by a 3 to 2 judgement (Justice Mazaher Alam Naqvi & Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhel dissenting), yes you read that right, Justice Mazaher dissented “that the vote of any member (including a deemed member) of a Parliamentary Party in a House that is cast contrary to any direction issued by the latter in terms of para (b) of clause (1) of Article 63A cannot be counted and must be disregarded.”
However, on April 16th 2022, much before the ruling, 25 PTI lawmakers that were part of the Jahangir Tarin and Aleem Khan groups in the Punjab Assembly had dissented and voted Hamza who with their help secured 197 votes to beat Elahi for the election of the chief minister of the Punjab assembly.
On 23rd May 2023 ECP denotifed the PTI MPAs under article 63A and ordered re-election on the 17th of July 2023, PTI won 15 of the 20 seats and once again became the majority party.
On 30th June LHC nullifies the election result that took place on the 16th of April 2022 and orders reelection on the 1st of July 2022. Ruling is challenged in SC which rules that the election be held on 17th of July after the re-election on the vacated seats has been completed. Which is eventually held on July 22nd and although Elahi secure a majority vote but the Dy speaker takes advantage of the SC ruling and nullifies 10 PML Q votes which is later reversed by the Supreme court and Elahi finally takes oath of office.
So where did all the chaos start, let us suppose the judgement was that the votes casted contrary to the judgement of article 63A will be counted and the dissidents will then be disqualified, what difference would all of this has made to the scheme of events, go through the timeline once again and you will see nothing significant would have happened, except that Hamza would have been voted on in a vote of no confidence and Elahi elected in the elections that would have happened consequently.
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