Chief Justice asks parties to sit today and update court about elections by 4pm
ISLAMABAD: Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial today directed the political parties to sit together on elections today and update the court by 4pm today.
The court ruled it after the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) assured the Court that they will sit with the PTI leader to find a solution to the election date.
Farooq H Naek of PPP and Khawaja Saad Rafique of PML-N assured the three-member bench of the apex court of holding talks with the PTI.
“We will hold talks with PTI so agitation ends,” Naek told the Court.
Saad Rafique told the court: “[We] are ready to find a solution on the election date by sitting with the opposition.”
Earlier, the ruling parties in the coalition showed its willingness to negotiate the process of holding elections on the same day with other political parties as per the order of the Supreme Court.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif chaired the meeting of the ruling parties on Wednesday.
“As politicians, we never shut the doors on negotiations and no one who believes in democracy could do so,” the coalition parties said after meeting.
The ruling parties of the PDM held a meeting in Islamabad after Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif convened a meeting to discuss the prevailing political situation and the efforts of Jamaat-e-Islami for negotiation to defuse tension.
The coalition parties said that talks are already going on after PM Shehbaz Sharif has formed a committee.
The apex court declared as inadmissible for hearing the plea of the defence ministry seeking general elections across Pakistan simultaneously upon completion of the terms of the assemblies.
A three-judge bench comprising Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Umar Ata Bandial, Justice Ijazul Ahsan, and Justice Munib Akhtar heard the petition.
On Tuesday, the Defence Ministry filed a plea in the Supreme Court a day after ISI, MI chiefs, and the defence secretary briefed the chief justice of Pakistan and two other judges about the prevailing security situation in the country.
The heads of ISI, MI, and the secretary of defence requested the apex court to suspend its order of holding elections in Punjab on May 14.
The Ministry of Defence suggested nationwide elections simultaneously for all the assemblies.
For this purpose, the defence ministry filed a request in the Supreme Court and a three-member will start its hearing at 11:30 am today.
On Monday, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Military Intelligence (MI) chiefs gave a detailed briefing to the judges of the Supreme Court who ordered elections in Punjab.
The heads of ISI and MI gave a briefing to the chief justice and other judges of the bench in the chamber of the CJP Umar Ata Bandial for three consecutive hours.
Last week, the apex court ordered the State Bank of Pakistan to release Rs 21 billion for elections in Punjab.
Resultantly, the acting governor of the State Bank of Pakistan Sima Kamil informed the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Finance on Monday that the SBP has allocated Rs21 billion for the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to hold elections in Punjab. She, however, stated that the central bank does not have the authority to release funds directly.
