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Case No. 9, the groundbreaking Geo Entertainment drama starring Saba Qamar, Aaminah Sheikh and Faysal Quraishi, known for its stellar script, acting and sensitive portrayal of a woman’s fight for justice, is making waves because of a scene that was later cut from the uploaded version of Episode 17 of the drama on YouTube — one that referenced the 26th Amendment and Justice Mansoor Ali Shah.

The line that was cut was said by Sheikh’s character, Beenish, who is a lawyer for Qamar’s character Seher. While Quraishi’s character is on the stand in court, he makes comments about Seher being a divorced woman, and not a virgin, implying that that has some corelation with her character. In response, Beenish delivers a moving argument, quoting from judgments given by Justice Ayesha Malik and Justice Shah.

While introducing Justice Shah and his judgment, she says, “Had the 26th Constitutional Amendment not been passed, blocking his way, he would have been our country’s chief justice.”

In response, the opposing lawyer quotes a poem by Mirza Ghalib about what could be and then says, “Parliament is the country’s supreme institution and it has passed the 26th Amendment.”

People who saw the episode air on Wednesday night, including members of the Images team, saw this clip, but by Thursday morning, the clip had been edited out of the uploaded video on the channel’s official YouTube.

Drama writer and journalist Shahzeb Khanzada, shared a clip of the unedited version of the scene to his X page.

For the unversed, the 26th Constitutional Amendment, which was passed by parliament early October 20, 2024, took away the Supreme Court’s suo motu powers, set the chief justice of Pakistan’s term at three years and empowered the prime minister to appoint the next CJP from among the three most senior Supreme Court judges. Before this, the chief justice was automatically the senior-most judge of the Supreme Court.

The 26th Amendment has been criticised by the PTI and legal circles as an effort to block Justice Shah, the senior-most judge, from becoming the chief justice of Pakistan.

Justice Shah resigned from the Supreme Court last week after the passage of the contentious 27th Constitutional Amendment.

Case No. 9 has been praised for its fearless portrayal of the issued faced by rape survivors in the pursuit of justice in Pakistan. Wednesday’s episode was lauded for its inclusion of Justice Malik and Justice Shah’s judgments, especially Justice Malik’s comments on a women’s previous partners having no bearing on her character or rape cases.