Acceptance of MNAs’ resignations: PTI moves SC against IHC’s order

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) challenged the Islamabad High Court (IHC)’s judgment regarding the acceptance of the PTI lawmakers’ resignations.

PTI Secretary General Asad Umar on Tuesday filed the appeal against the IHC judgment in the Supreme Court through advocate Faisal Fareed and made Speaker National Assembly, Election Commission of Pakistan, Secretary Cabinet Division, and Secretary National Assembly.

Chief Justice IHC Athar Minallah, on September 6, had turned down the PTI’s petition challenging the phase-wise acceptance of resignations of its Members of National Assembly (MNAs) and declared that the then deputy speaker Qasim Suri’s issued notification of acceptance of the resignation is “in violation of the Constitution”.

The IHC’s judgment noted; “The purported notification, dated 13-04-2022, was, therefore, issued in violation of the Constitution and the principles and law enunciated by the superior courts as highlighted in the aforementioned judgment.

Moreover, the Court is satisfied that the process initiated by the worthy Speaker in order to verify the genuineness of the resignations is in consonance with the Constitution and the settled principles and law.”

The petition said that the judgement is "vague, cursory and against the law and has been rendered in a mechanical manner without addressing the material legal and constitutional questions raised in the writ petition".

It also claims that the IHC disregarded the material facts of the case at hand and failed to adhere to the principle that each case has to be decided on its own peculiar facts.

The petition also stated that the court failed to consider inter alia article 64 read with Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the National Assembly of Pakistan, 2007, and rendered the impugned judgment without looking into the controversy in a proper judicial manner and thus was the decision not taken in a slipshod and arbitrary manner.

The petition further states that impugned judgment came to the conclusion, through a non-speaking and unreasonable order and that “no law permits the successor office holder i-e the speaker of the National Assembly to alter, modify, review or revise the order of the predecessor with regard to the acceptance of the resignations that have already accepted and notified by his predecessor in office.”

The party went on to term the actions as “illegal, perverse and tantamount to abuse of law and authority.”

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022