Law:

Section:

TUFAIL ALI A. REHMAN, C. J.----These four Miscellaneous Appeals are all directed against orders of the Election Tribunal, Sind & Baluchistan, constituted under the National and Provincial Assemblies (Elections) Ordinance, X111 of 1970 while the two Constitutional Petitions also challenge the legality of petitions pending before the same tribunal. In each of the appeals, with the exception of Miscellaneous Appeal 57 of 1972, the order sought to be appealed against an order refusing an application to dismiss the petition without trial on the ground that by reason of violation of certain provisions of the Ordinance, they were, under the Ordinance itself, liable to be dismissed without trial. In the case of the Miscellaneous Appeal No. 57 of 1972 the order is one of refusal to adjourn the trial of the petition to enable the appellant to produce certain evidence. We found it convenient to hear these matters together because the first question that arose in the Miscellaneous Appeals was whether they were at all maintainable under the statute. It would be obvious that, if they were held to be maintainable, then the Constitutional Petitions could not be inasmuch as obviously an alternate remedy existed but, in the case of the Constitutional Petitions, the question also arises whether, even if that bar to the maintainability of the petition is not in the way of the petitioners, a petition of this kind at an interlocutory stage was permissible or at any rate should, as a matter of discretion, he heard at all. Consequently we decided to hear counsel upon these questions as preliminary questions in the matters intending to proceed further in the matter if we came to the conclusion that they were maintainable. After hearing counsel on both sides, however, we conferred between ourselves and decided that none of the miscellaneous appeal were maintainable and also that the constitutional petitions were not such as to justify our interference, at any rate at this: stage of the proceedings, and, therefore, announced our decision to that effect without going into the merits of the matter further. This decision was announced about one hour after we had finished hearing…