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The Supreme Court orders Hamza to resign and Pervaiz Elahi to take the oath of office as Punjab"s chief executive at 11:30 p.m.
After hearing arguments on petitions pertaining to the just-concluded election for the coveted position, the Supreme Court on Tuesday pronounced the deputy speaker"s decision regarding the Punjab chief minister election null and unconstitutional.

After more than three hours of waiting, the reserved verdict was announced by a three-judge panel made up of Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial, Justice Ijazul Ahsan, and Justice Munib Akhtar.

The court upheld the validity of the ten votes cast by PML-Q MPs in the CM election that were disregarded by Deputy Speaker Dost Mohammad Mazari on the basis of a letter from party leader Chaudhry Shujaat.

In a brief ruling, the Supreme Court ordered that the petitioner, Pervaiz Elahi, take the oath of office as Punjab"s chief minister at 11:30 p.m. tonight and that the province"s current chief minister, Hamza Shehbaz, resign from his position immediately.

The supreme court also overturned all of Hamza"s decisions following the contentious election for chief minister, in which Hamza received 179 votes to Elahi"s 186.

The three-judge panel further concluded that the deputy speaker "subverted the Constitution" by misinterpreting the Supreme Court"s ruling on Article 63A, which deals with the defection provision.

The verdict said that if the Punjab governor failed to administer Pervaiz Elahi with the chief minister"s oath, the president would do so.

Irfan Qadir, the attorney for Punjab Assembly Deputy Speaker Dost Mazari, and Farooq H Naek, the attorney for the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), skipped the proceedings as the hearing got underway earlier today.

A three-member bench presided over the hearing at the beginning of the proceedings under the leadership of Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial.

Irfan Qadir, the lawyer for Dost Mazari, the deputy speaker of the Punjab Assembly, entered the chamber and announced that he had been instructed not to take part in the proceedings.

He insisted, "I won"t take part in any more procedures."

The chief justice responded that the court had concluded that there was no need for a full court to hear the matter when Qadir said he would file a revision against the judgement rejecting the petition asking for the establishment of a full five-member bench.

The Chief Justice of Pakistan stated, "Arguments were made in court on the compliance of the party leader"s directives," adding that the counsel representing the parties were informed that the Constitution did not permit interference with governmental processes.

Justice Bandial argued that the entire court"s formation was only requested to postpone the case, and that judges for the supreme court wouldn"t be available until the second week of September.

He added that he would prefer to settle the lawsuit quickly for the benefit of governance and crisis management.

In his decision, Mazari had disregarded 10 votes from members of the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q), relying on the Supreme Court"s rule that votes from parliamentarians who disobeyed party leadership directives would not be taken into account.