ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC), Wednesday, suspended the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP)’s order to denotify Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) lawmakers Asad Umar, Ali Nawaz Awan, and Raja Khurram Shahzad Nawaz.
A single bench of IHC comprising Chief Justice of IHC Justice Aamer Farooq heard the petition moved by three Members of the National Assembly (MNAs) of PTI elected from the federal capital challenging acceptance of their resignation.
The IHC bench also suspended National Assembly Speaker Raja Pervez Ashraf’s notification of accepting their resignations while it further barred the ECP from conducting by-polls in these constituencies.
During the hearing, the IHC chief justice remarked that earlier the PTI leaders were upset over non-acceptance of their resignations and now they were voicing against it after these were approved. He also asked that have you only challenged the notification.
Barrister Ali Zafar, who represented the PTI leaders in the case, told the court that his clients wanted to return to the assembly. He also informed the court about a decision of the Lahore High Court (LHC) regarding the suspension of de-notification of PTI MNAs’ from Punjab. He said two other petitions of the PTI lawmakers were also pending in the LHC.
Later, the bench suspended the ECP and the NA speaker’s notifications and deferred the hearing till March 28 for further proceedings.
The PTI MNAs, including former finance minister Asad Umar, Ali Nawaz Awan, and Khurram Shehzad filed the petition in the IHC through his counsel Barrister Ali Zafar and Barrister Gohar Khan.
They cited the federal government, Speaker National Assembly, and secretary NA and the ECP as respondents in the case and requested the court to suspend the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP)’s and the National Assembly speaker’s notification.
In the petition, they stated that on 11-04-2022, en-masse letters were obtained by PTI from 123 members of the National Assembly, including the petitioners, and submitted accordingly. They added that the petitioners acted on the directions of the party and for the political objective only of arriving at an agreement with the opposition parties for holding of fresh elections so that a new government may be formed with the real mandate of the people of Pakistan, and the nation could be relieved of the current impasse.
The PTI leaders said that the resignation was subject to all the 123 members of the National Assembly belonging to PTI resigning and being de-seated jointly and as a whole.
They further said that the then acting Speaker (Deputy Speaker National Assembly, Qasim Suri) accepted the “en masse” resignations on 13.04.2022 but after the Deputy Speaker’s resignation on 16.04.2022, the new Speaker (Respondent No 1) was elected and he, on 16.04.2022, gave a ruling reversing the acceptance of the resignations by the acting Speaker (Deputy Speaker Suri) and directed the Secretariat to resubmit the resignations for verification in accordance with the judgments of the superior courts.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023
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