ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Tuesday stopped accountability courts from issuing a final verdict in the NAB cases as it adjourned the hearing till the detailed verdict on the law clipping the chief justice’s powers is released.
The court issued the directives while hearing the first-ever intra-court appeal against its September 15 majority judgment, which trashed the amendments to the accountability law.
The larger bench headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Qazi Faez Isa and including Justice Aminuddin Khan, Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail, Justice Athar Minallah and Justice Syed Hasan Azhar Rizvi took up two intra-court appeals — one filed by the federal government and the other by former SSGCL MD Zuhair Ahmed Siddiqui.
The five-member top court bench took up the appeals in line with its October 11 short order in which the PDM government-made law to regulate the affairs of the top court — namely the Supreme Court (Practice and Procedure) Act 2023 — was upheld.
The federal government, in an application dated October 30, urged the top court to adjourn the hearing till the week starting from November 6 due to the unavailability of its counsel. Counsel for the government, Makhdoom Ali Khan is scheduled to return on November 4. During the hearing, Attorney General for Pakistan Mansoor Usman Awan appeared before the court as the federal government’s counsel while Farook H. Naek was present as Siddiqui’s lawyer.
