He had a dream….

Having faced the Supreme Court’s ire in the last three days while trying to prove the maintainability of his plea for the reconstitution of the Election Commission of Pakistan, Tehreek Minhajul Quran chief Dr Tahirul Qadri was on Wednesday sent home by the three-member SC bench, which told the cleric he had no locus standi in the matter.
The rejection of the petition by the SC has left Qadri high and dry, as evident from his outburst against the very judges he had praising ever since he returned to Pakistan this December.
Although Qadri had tolerated the SC’s salvo at him in the first two days of hearing, the cleric lost his cool on the third day when the bench did not discuss the merits of his petition and kept questioning his intentions and patriotism for being a dual national.
In his angst, Qadri resorted to strict remarks against the chief justice, but the bench stopped short of issuing a contempt notice to the firebrand scholar.
In its short order, the three-member bench maintained that Dr Qadri failed in proving the eligibility of his petition. The court also stated that Qadri could not participate in the elections, but could exercise his right to vote.
During the course of hearing, Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry said there were more than 100 registered political parties, 342 elected members of the National Assembly and several parties that were not part of the assemblies, yet only Qadri had reservations over the Election Commission.
The chief justice asked Qadri how his rights were being infringed upon, adding that he would have to prove the purity of his intentions since he had suddenly appeared on the national stage.
The chief justice observed that the petition had been submitted in a personal capacity and the petitioner was not eligible to contest elections, therefore he must prove his right to petition.
QADRI’S RESPONSE: Qadri replied that from North to South Pole, no one could revoke the nationality of a Pakistani citizen and the proceedings suggested that a trial of dual nationals was being held as if they had committed some offence.
He said he was being put on trial for three days through questions that the constitution did not even allow to be asked. This prompted the chief justice to say that everyone who appeared before the court was liable to questioning.
The bench also questioned Qadri’s loyalty as he had sworn allegiance to Queen Elizabeth of England. To this, Qadri said if the CJ’s loyalty could not be termed suspicious for his PCO oath, his oath to Queen Elizabeth could not be questioned as well.
Flashing a picture of the CJ taking oath from former military dictator Pervez Musharraf, Qadri said if he had taken oath of loyalty to the Queen, the judges themselves had taken oath from a former military ruler under the Legal Framework Order (LFO).
He said there was no difference between him and the judges who had taken oath from Musharraf. The chief justice told him that he was referring to a person who had become history. The CJ said Qadri should know that former dictator Pervez Musharraf was president in 2005 and every chief justice took oath from the president. Irked by Qadri’s response, the bench warned him that the hearing of his petition would be adjourned indefinitely if he addressed the bench in such a manner. Qadri was then directed to step down from the rostrum.
The cleric found an unexpected ally in the form of Attorney General Irfan Qadir when the court asked the AG to speak his mind regarding the eligibility of Qadri’s petition.
The attorney general advised the bench to focus on the petition instead of the character of the petitioner. He said the verdicts upon which Dr Qadri had been relying were not correct and urged the court to look into the issue whether the petitioner had come with clean hands.
QADRI DENIES: Muhammad Munir Peracha, counsel for the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), told the bench that Qadri wanted to delay the elections for two years and he had also expressed his intentions during his public gathering held at Minar-e-Pakistan, Lahore, on December 23. When Qadri denied giving any such statement, the court ordered for the recording of his Lahore rally to be presented to the court. Dr Qadri complained before the court that he had been questioned about his dual nationality for three days of the hearing, but his petition did not come under discussion.
In the short order, the court observed that at the conclusion of his argument, the petitioner made uncalled for aspersions against the court which were tantamount to undermining its authority and invoking of contempt of court proceedings under Article 204 of the constitution and Section 3 of the Contempt of Court Ordinance 2007. “We, however, are exercising restraint and not proceeding against him at this stage as this jurisdiction should be sparingly exercised on a case-to-case basis,” the order said. Dismissing the plea, the bench said the petitioner failed to make his case for invoking discretionary jurisdiction of the court under Article 184 (3).
“In view of facts, none of the fundamental rights of petitioner were violated as he had neither listed any among those nor pointed out during the course of hearing,” the order stated.
It said the petitioner also failed to establish his bonafide intention and under the peculiar circumstances, had no locus standi to get relief at this stage as prayed by him in his plea, inter alia as he was also holder of dual nationality (not qualified to contest elections due to the constitutional bar of Article 63 (1) (c) which had been interpreted by this court in its verdicts over the issue.
However, the bench said it was loudly and clearly observed that as a voter like other overseas Pakistanis, whose names had been notified in the electoral lists, the petitioner could exercise his right of franchise as held by the constitution and the court.
Qadri’s outburst: Talking to reporters outside the Supreme Court, Qadri said there was no hearing held for the appointment of ECP members under the law and the court should have called the parliamentary committee members and asked for the minutes of their meeting. “All of this would have proved that the constitution of the election commission was unconstitutional,” Qadri said while explaining his petition.
He also questioned the PCO oath taken by some of the court judges and said if loyalty to Queen of England could create doubts about patriotism of Pakistani citizen, an oath from a dictator also meant the same.
“Is it not the very chief justice who had taken first oath under the constitution and second oath under Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO),” he added.
“With due respect to the judiciary, I want to tell the people the truth. They did not even let me read out a single word from my petition. When I started reading it out yesterday, they did not listen to me and asked me about my dual nationality instead,” he added.
Qadri also said that he became furious when the court attacked all dual nationals. “There are millions of Pakistanis who are loyal to Pakistan and are dual nationals. They add billions of rupees to Pakistan’s economy… Their loyalty was questioned.” Qadri said the SC’s dismissal of his petition was a political move, against legal and constitutional norms and tantamount to hurting fundamental rights of millions of overseas Pakistanis.