Will polls in Punjab be held on May 14?

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court Tuesday decided to hold elections in Punjab on May 14th but the question remains if the polls will be held on the announced date.

While reaching its decision amid serious controversy over the constitution of the three-member bench that has handed down this decision, the Supreme Court has upset three important stakeholders: the ruling PDM coalition, the Election Commission of Pakistan and judges within the apex court. Two of them -- the ECP and the ruling PDM coalition -- may have different options including implementing the decision or challenging it by exercising their right to file a review in the Supreme Court.

The ECP is expected to meet soon to consider the matter and weigh its options in the light of what the apex court has decided. The ECP is a constitutional quasi-judicial body. In its order dated March 22nd, the ECP had decided to postpone the Punjab and KPK elections till Oct 8, 2023. The order of the ECP has been quashed and declared by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional, without lawful authority or jurisdiction, void ab-initio, and of no legal effect. The Supreme Court ruled that neither the Constitution nor the law empowers the Commission to extend the date of elections beyond 90 days as provided in Article 224(2) of the Constitution. Sources in the ECP, when approached, said that the matter will be put before the commission as soon as it meets. These sources said that the commission will decide what options it has in the light of the SC decision. “The commission can simply act in line with the order of the Supreme Court or it can consider filing a review in the apex court over declaring its order unconstitutional,” a source said but pointed out that how could the Supreme Court announce the election date (May 14th) and the polls schedule for Punjab as these were the ECP functions under the Constitution. The source said that the election date for Punjab has been announced while leaving the KPK matter aside. It is said that one major reason for the delay in elections in Punjab was the unavailability of required security personnel.

The source said that the Punjab government had informed the commission that it was short of almost 350,000 police personnel and in the present situation, it can deploy hardly one policeman at one polling station. How could the commission secure the polling station in such a situation? Regarding the army’s deployment for election duties, the commission was told by the defence authorities that it could not compromise on its sensitive fundamental responsibilities and spare soldiers defending the country and fighting terrorism to do the election duties. Will the defence authorities now agree to spare soldiers for election duties, asked the ECP source. The coalition government, soon after the SC decision, held its cabinet meeting and rejected the Supreme Court’s decision. The government though politically can say that it rejects the apex court’s decision, it is constitutionally bound to implement the court decision or file a review. Regarding the options, the cabinet has reportedly assigned its legal minds to suggest to the government what legal and constitutional means are available to the government and ruling coalition to avoid the May 14th elections in Punjab. Parliamentary leaders of the ruling PDM are also meeting on Wednesday to devise its future political and legal strategy in light of the Supreme Court’s decision.

The Supreme Court’s latest order has also tried to settle the rift within the apex court by rejecting the positions taken by the dissenting judges. The order said, “Our attention has been drawn to certain matters that were pending in this Court (being SMC 1/2023 and CP Nos. 1 and 2/2023) and which were heard and decided on 01.03.2023 by a five-member bench of the Court by a majority of 3:2 (Umar Ata Bandial, CJ and Munib Akhtar and Muhammad Ali Mazhar, JJ; Syed Mansoor Ali Shah and Jamal Khan Mandokhail, JJ dissenting). In particular, our attention has been drawn to the detailed reasons of the two learned Judges in minority (released on 27.03.2023), wherein it is, inter alia, stated that the said matters were decided (and dismissed) by a majority of 4:3. Respectfully, the position as claimed by the learned Judges in minority is erroneous and not sustainable in law.”

It added, “Our attention has also been drawn to an order dated 29.03.2023 made in SMC 4/2022 by a majority of 2:1 by a learned three-member bench (Qazi Faez Isa and Aminuddin Khan, JJ; Shahid Waheed, J dissenting). The hearing of the present matter remained, and its decision by this bench is wholly unaffected by any observations made in the aforesaid majority order.” Only time will tell how the “dissenting” Supreme Court judges will react to this order of the apex court.