4-year occupation: Arbab Rahim’s absence might leave seat vacant

The SHC on Wednesday dismissed a plea, filed on Rahim’s behalf by two MPAs of the Pakistan Muslim League (likeminded).

HYDERABAD:

The PS-60 constituency of the Sindh Assembly may finally fall vacant after a four-year long occupation by Arbab Ghulam Rahim whose absence without leave completes in the ongoing session. 

The Sindh High Court on Wednesday dismissed a plea, filed on Rahim’s behalf by two MPAs of the Pakistan Muslim League (likeminded), seeking the court’s help to obtain leave for him.

“Today or tomorrow will be the last day of the 40 consecutive days of Rahim’s absence,” said the counsel of the petitioners, advocate Yousuf Laghari, while appealing to the divisional bench of Justice Aqeel Ahmed Abbasi and Justice Muhammad Tasnim to declare the refusal to allow leave as mala fide.

On March 6, the house denied granting him leave on an application submitted on February 29 by MPA Abdul Razzaq Rahimoon, who is also one of the two petitioners, including MPA Arbab Zulfiqar, in the case. It followed another similar repudiation of a leave application on February 17 by the house.

According to section 56(1) of the legislature’s rules of procedure, any member can move that a seat be declared vacant after a member’s absence of a consecutive 40 days from the session. Rahim, who is the former chief minister of Sindh, has been staying away from attending the session since April 2008 by regularly submitting for leave on health grounds. Laghari complained of discrimination against Rahim and the MPAs of his party, referring to a statement by MPA Nuzhat Pathan that the ruling party is threatening to get the seat vacated. His remonstrance that the government was not extending reconciliation to them prompted a pejorative question by Justice Abbasi, “Do you subscribe to that policy?”

Advocate General Sindh Abdul Fateh Malik questioned the filing of the petition by the MPAs who are not an aggrieved party. “The court can’t overrule the authority of the house which rejected granting of the leave,” he argued.

Leader of the Opposition

The bench observed during the arguments by the litigants that no rule for the election of the leader of the opposition has been laid down in the assembly’s rules of the procedure.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 22^nd, 2012.