Former premier Imran appears before bench via video link
The Supreme Court (SC) rejected the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government’s petition seeking a live broadcast of the NAB law amendments case as the apex court resumed hearing on Thursday.
A five-judge bench led by Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa and including Justice Aminuddin Khan, Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail, Justice Athar Minallah, and Justice Syed Hasan Azhar Rizvi, is hearing the federal government’s intra-court appeal.
The federal government challenged the apex court’s majority verdict in September last year, declaring amendments to the National Accountability Ordinance (NAO) 2002 illegal. Tuesday’s proceedings were telecast live on the apex court’s website.
Justice Minallah dissented with the majority 4-1 decision. The chief justice said the court has never received such a plea before and all judges deliberated on the petition before a decision was reached.
Former premier Imran Khan is also appearing before the five-member bench again today via video link.
At the outset of the hearing today, Justice Minallah said the hearing should be broadcast in the same manner earlier hearings were. However, the chief justice said the case is “technical” in nature and is not a matter of public interest.
“The last hearing was not broadcast live and neither will we broadcast today,” added Justice Isa.
Following these remarks, the bench took a recess to deliberate if the hearing should be broadcast live.
