LAHORE: Lahore High Court Chief Justice Aalia Neelum on Wednesday sought further arguments on the maintainability of two identical petitions challenging the Supreme Court (Practice and Procedure) Amendment Ordinance 2024.

Earlier, Advocate Azhar Siddique appeared on behalf of one of the petitioners and confirmed that he had not filed a petition in the Supreme Court on the same subject matter.

He requested the chief justice to decide the matter before the next week, otherwise, the petition would stand infructuous.

The chief justice observed that it was difficult to hold the hearing sooner due to workload during the current week.

However, she assured that a short date for the hearing will be fixed.

Later, the chief justice ordered that both petitions be consolidated andfixed together on Oct 7.

She directed that a copy of the new petition be provided to the offices of the attorney general for Pakistan and the advocate general of Punjab, so they could assist the court at the next hearing.

The petitioners mainly contended that the presidential ordinance was based on malice. They said there was already a Supreme Court ruling on thePracticeandProcedure Act 2023, and the powers of the apex court cannot be increased or decreased through an ordinance.

They argued that implementing the impugned ordinance can disrupt the judicial system, causing uncertainty and potentially frustrating Pakistan`s judicial history.

They asked the court to declare the impugned ordinance null and void and also halt its implementation until a final decision on the matter. Staff Reporter