ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court restored on Thursday the National Assembly’s membership of a PTI lawmaker after vacating its earlier order. Ghulam Sarwar Khan was elected from NA-53 Rawalpindi-IV, but the apex court suspended his membership on July 18 last year when his academic credentials were challenged by petitioner Raja Qamar.
A three-judge bench headed by Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali that had taken up the matter relating to election of Ghulam Sarwar Khan also sent a request to Chief Justice Tassaduq Hussain Jillani to decide the scope and extent of suo motu jurisdiction.
Advocate Abdul Hafeez Pirzada, representing Ghulam Sarwar, earlier said that the membership of his client had been suspended on a suo motu jurisdiction and argued that the court should not pass such an order unless there was adjudication by a court of competent jurisdiction.
In its ruling, the apex court observed that there was no justification for depriving constituents of NA-53 of their representative, especially when the Lahore High Court had already decided the dispute over the bachelor’s degree of Ghulam Sarwar in his favour.
Mr Pirzada argued that his client had been contesting elections since 1980 and had also served as minister, both provincial and federal, from time to time.When Justice Jamali observed that the high court’s order was conditional, Justice Saqib Nisar, another member of the bench, said that if the suspension order could be passed on suo motu, it could be recalled as well.“Now the time has ended to mess up things,” Justice Nisar observed, adding that the law should take its own course.
The court vacated its earlier order and requested the chief justice to constitute a larger bench to decide about the extent and scope of suo motu jurisdiction.
Meanwhile, a bench headed by the chief justice disposed of a suo motu notice taken on a media report about the supply of contaminated batches of injections for diagnosing cancer.
The report had suggested that contaminated cancer-diagnostic injections with undesirable radio-nuclide supplied by the Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology (Pinstech) could cause cancer, instead of diagnosing it.
The case was disposed of on a report submitted by the director general of Pinstech stating that a committee had been constituted to investigate the allegation.
In its finding the committee said it had studied the quality procedures / SOP and visited relevant production facilities and testing labs, interviewed relevant scientists / technicians and gone through the record of inspection / acceptance / rejection.
The committee checked the record of all the molybdenum-99 batches produced at Pinstech thoroughly and found it in order as per SOP.
It verified that the Pakistan Nuclear Regulatory Authority, being an independent regularity authority and licensor, also conducts random testing.
The production facility was installed / commissioned by renowned German scientists and highly qualified Pakistani scientists. The Mo-99 is thus produced according to the international quality standards, the report said, adding that the feedbacks from different end-user hospitals confirmed that the product was rechecked and qualified by the user. The disqualified product, if any, is not used.
The report said the committee satisfied itself that standard operating procedures for qualification and certifications were not violated. No evidence could be found of any pressure whatsoever from the high-ups on the analysts or technicians to alter the quality control results, it said.In its order the court held that the news item was not based on a correct appreciation of the relevant facts and in any case it had served a purpose since on intervention of the court, Pinstech got the allegations inquired into.