Fact-check: No, the 26th amendment did not raise Supreme Court's appeal fee to Rs1 million

Social media platforms are awash with claims that the 26th Constitutional Amendment, passed on October 21, has increased the fee for filing an appeal in the Supreme Court from Rs50,000 to a whopping Rs1 million.

The claim is false.

Claim

“Justice has become more expensive now,” wrote a user on X, formerly known as Twitter, on October 22. “After the 26th constitutional amendments, the fee for filing an appeal in the Supreme Court has been set at Rs1 million. Previously it was Rs50,000.”

The post has been viewed over 47,000 times and reposted more than 15,000 times, to date.

A similar claim was shared by another X user on the same day.

Fact

The Rs1 million mentioned in the amendment is not a fee for filing an appeal in the Supreme Court. Instead, it is the threshold of the dispute amount required to be met before the Supreme Court can consider taking up an appeal.

In the early hours of October 21, both houses of Pakistan’s parliament passed a set of amendments to the Constitution. One of these changes pertains to the appeals of decisions or disputes between lower courts that can be escalated to the Supreme Court.

Previously, Article 185’s clause 2 (d) required that the value of the dispute in lower courts be at least Rs50,000 to be eligible for a Supreme Court hearing. The amendment increased this amount to Rs1 million.

Salahuddin Ahmed, a Karachi-based lawyer, explained to Geo Fact Check that this amount serves as a valuation threshold for filing a direct appeal in the Supreme Court.

“Earlier [the constitution] held that if a subject-matter of dispute is above Rs50,000 on a matter of disagreement in lower courts, therefore a trial court or an appellate court, then you can file a direct appeal [in the SC],” he said otherwise a person would have to file a petition of leave to appeal, “Now that amount is Rs1 million.”

The exact text of the Article 185 (2) (d) has been reproduced below after the amendment:

“An appeal shall lie to the Supreme Court from any judgment, decree, final order or sentence of a high court –

(d) if the amount or value of the subject matter of the dispute in the court of first instance was, and also in dispute in appeal is, not less than one million rupees or such other sum as may be specified in that behalf by Act of [Majlis-e-Shoora (Parliament)] and the judgement, decree or final order appealed from has varied or set aside the judgement, decree or final order of the court immediately below…”

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