Constitutional court dismisses 1,178 petitions against levy ruling

The Federal Constitutional Court has dismissed 1,178 review petitions against the Supreme Court's December 28, 2021 judgment on the constitutional validity of the Income Support Levy Act 2013, upholding the earlier ruling. The Associated Press of Pakistan reported the dismissal on October 28 in a dispatch that set out the number of petitions and the outcome but little else.

The report did not name the judges on the bench, give the date the order was passed, publish the court's reasons, or identify any of the petitioners and the grounds on which they had challenged the 2021 decision.

Dawn also carried the dismissal, according to a headline circulated by the aggregator Ua.News. In the material available, that report likewise gave no detail on the composition of the bench or the arguments advanced in the review petitions. Skardu Times could not independently obtain the text of the order.

Review petitions ask a court to reconsider its own judgment. Where they are dismissed, the original decision stands. On the accounts available, the December 2021 ruling on the 2013 levy therefore remains the operative judgment, and no further challenge to it was reported.

The Income Support Levy Act 2013 was the law whose constitutional validity the Supreme Court decided on December 28, 2021. The reports available did not describe its provisions, its scope or the amounts it covers, and none of them set out the grounds of the challenge.

Neither the federal government, the finance ministry nor any of the petitioners was quoted in the accounts available, and there was no immediate official statement on the practical effect of the dismissal, including on any levy assessed under the law.

The Federal Constitutional Court heard the review petitions; the reports did not describe its procedure in this case. The number of petitions dismissed, 1,178, was the most specific detail the state news agency's dispatch carried, and it is that figure, rather than any reasoning, that the published accounts of the order rest on.