Targeting Nawaz, Nisar: SHC calls comments on disqualification pleas

Bench adjourned hearing for a date that will be specified later by the office

KARACHI:

The Sindh High Court (SHC) directed the additional attorney general on Thursday to file comments about the petitions filed before the Supreme Court (SC) and the Lahore High Court (LHC) against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar.

Justice Aqeel Ahmed Abbasi – who headed the bench – heard a petition filed by Moulvi Iqbal Hiader and Maqsood Ahmed, to disqualify the premier and interior minister for allegedly lying during a National Assembly session.

The secretaries of the law ministries, the premier, the interior minister, the director general of Inter-Services Press Relations (ISPR), the secretary interior, the deputy commissioner Islamabad and IG Islamabad police were named as respondents in the case.

The petitioners claimed that the PM Nawaz had, in his meeting with Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Raheel Sharif last week, asked the latter to intervene in the political crisis in order to resolve it. However, when the question regarding the COAS’s intervention was raised in the National Assembly, he vehemently denied asking General Raheel Sharif to mediate the matter.

The petitioners had argued that Nawaz and Nisar had no right to retain their offices as they had lied on the assembly floor and could be disqualified under Article 62 and 63.

During Thursday’s proceedings, the Attorney General of Pakistan (AGP) produced copies of the order passed by the LHC on September 2.

According to the AGP, relief was sought on broadly similar grounds from the LHC. However, the court had dismissed the petition.

The petitioner insisted that the respondents should be directed to file a proper reply. He added that the issue raised and the relief sought in the present petition is different and distinguishable from the controversy raised before the LHC.

The AGP requested for the case to be adjourned. As a result, the bench adjourned the hearing for a date that will be specified later by the office.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 5^th, 2014.