ISLAMABAD  -  The Pakistan Elec­tronic Media Regula­tory Authority (Pem­ra) Wednesday filed an application in the Su­preme Court of Paki­stan to withdraw its re­view petition against the court’s judgment on Faizabad dharna.

A day ago the Intelli­gence Bureau (IB) had also filed an applica­tion to withdraw its re­view petition against the SC verdict February 6, 2019. A three-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa and comprising Justice Aminuddin Khan and Justice Athar Mi­nallah will hear today the petitions of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Intel­ligence Bureau (IB), Military Intelli­gence (MI), and Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), media wing of army, the PTI, MQM-P, Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), Pemra, and defence ministry. The SC judgment had direct­ed the intelligence agencies and the ISPR not to exceed their constitution­al mandates. The pleas were not taken up during the tenures of the last three chief justices, namely Asif Saeed Khosa, Gulzar Ahmed and Umar Ata Bandial.

Justice Isa, in his 2019 Faizabad Dharna judgment, had written that the Constitution emphatically prohibited members of the armed forces from en­gaging in any kind of political activity, which included supporting a political party, faction or individual.

He had held that no one, including any government, department or intel­ligence agency, could curtail the fun­damental right of freedom of speech, expression and press beyond the pa­rameters mentioned in Article 19 of the Constitution.

He ruled that those who resorted to such tactics under the mistaken belief that they served some higher goal de­luded themselves.