Lahore High Court (LHC) Rawalpindi Bench on Tuesday issued notices to Speaker National Assembly Sardar Ayaz Sadiq to submit detailed comments within four weeks about delay in accepting Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) MNAs’ resignations.
The court was hearing a petition filed by Supreme Court’s former chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry’s son Dr Arsalan Iftikhar, who challenged the delay in approval of the PTI MNAs resignations – particularly of the PTI chief Imran Khan by the speaker’s office.
The petitioner – through his lawyer Mobeenud Din Qazi – nominated Imran Khan, the NA speaker, Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and secretary cabinet division as respondents.
He told the single judge bench – comprising Justice Mazhar Iqbal Sidhu – that he is a registered voter in Quetta and therefore, qualifies to be elected as a member National Assembly from any constituency in Pakistan including NA-56 Rawalpindi.
He said the PTI chief Imran Khan contested the general elections 2013 but unfortunately he has resigned from the National Assembly on August 22, 2014 by submitting to the speaker his resignation along with 29 other MNAs of his party.
Arsalan Iftikhar submitted before the court that due to submission of resignation, a valuable constitutional and legal right has been created in favour of the petitioner as well to contest the election from the NA-56.
It would not be out of place to mention here that a large number of residents and voters from NA-56 were approaching the petitioner to contest the election from their constituency and represent them in the National Assembly, the petitioner told the court.
The petitioner contended that Article 64 does not require any kind of inquiry by the speaker and it cast a duty upon him to send it to the ECP for de-notification of a member who openly admits that he has resigned.
He said the issuance of notices by the speaker to the members for verification purposes proves that the speaker has received the resignations.
“That speaker instead of notifying the resignations is requesting the members to withdraw the resignations and extending time for processing the resignation, which is illegal, unconstitutional and unwarranted. The speaker cannot be allowed to frustrate the constitutional provisions by keeping the matter lingering on,” the petitioner added.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 19th, 2014.
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Those resigning should be forced to individually confirm their resignations.