The Supreme Court (SC) has reserved judgment on a petition filed against section 17 of its rules whereby the apex court employees could hire services of a counsel for their cases.
When a three-member SC bench headed by Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali took up the petition filed by SC employee Ishtiaq Ahmad for hearing on Wednesday, the Attorney General (AG) told the court that Sindh, Punjab and Balochistan governments supported the SC rules while the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government was opposing it
Hamid Khan, counsel for petitioner, took plea that section 17 of SC is in conflict with article 10-A of the constitution which guarantees fair trial of cases.
The AG said that the SC was at liberty to enact its own rules and these rules cannot be challenged. Law officers of Sindh, Punjab and Balochistan corroborated the AG’s arguments. However, the law officer of KP government said that section 17 was in contravene of article 10 A of the constitution.
The court reserved the judgment after hearing arguments.