ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court was requested on Monday to consutute a larger bench in place of the current three-judge bench that is hearing a review petition against Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah.

The bench, consisting of Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Umar Ata Bandial, Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah and Justice Munib Akhtar, is slated to take up the review petition moved by Roshan Ali Baririo seeking Mr Shah`s disqualification under Article 62(1)(f) of the Constitution for possessing dual nationality and having an iqama or work permit. Mr Baririo is Mr Shah`s political rival.On Jan 23, 2019, the apex court had rejected a petition while questioning the returning of ficer`s (RO) April 6, 2013 order which disqualified Mr Shah by stating that RO was not a court of law.

On Monday, an application was moved on behalf of the chief minister highlighting that one of the members in the bench was a member of the election tribunal who, instead of hearing the case, should have recused himself from the bench.

Mr Shah`s application highlights that Justice Yahya Afridi was a member of the bench which had rejected the original petition in Jan 23, 2019, now being considered by the court through the review petition.

It said Justice Afridi was not a member of the present bench and therefore it should be considered that the bench has not been constituted properly to hear the review petition. He contends that the review petition should not proceedin the absence of Justice Afridi.

According to the application, it was a requirement of Order 26, Rule 8, of the Supreme Court Rules that as far as practicable, the plea for the review should be fixed before the same bench which earlier delivered the judgement sought to be reviewed.

Since Justice Afridi continues to be a judge of the Supreme Court and thus available to be a member of the bench, he should be included in the bench, Mr Shah pleaded.

The application also cited the 2021 Jusdce Qazi Faez Isa judgement in which the apex court had held that in the constitution of a review bench, the CJP should ensure substantial compliance with Order 26 Rule 8 by including the author judge, if available in the review bench, but where it was not practicable to do so then there was no obligation to have exactly the same judges in the bench.

The applicant also reminded the court that a separate application byhim for the formation of a larger bench was already pending before it. He said it is clear in view of the circumstances and importance of the matter that a larger bench ought to be constituted.

In the original petition, Mr Baririo had pleaded that Mr Shah was allegedly neither righteous nor sagacious and therefore should be disqualified for life on the grounds that he was earlier disqualified for having dual nationality.

The petition had pleaded that Mr Shah was a Canadian national and his nomination papers were rejected by the RO for possessing dual nationality. The RO also held that Mr Shah was neither honest nor ameen.

However, the apex court had raised question over the RO acting as a court of law, adding that Mr Shah had applied for renouncing his citizenship on Sept 29, 2012 and got certificate from the Canadian authorities about the cancellation of his citizenship on July 18, 2013.