Credit card fraud case: Four PML-N leaders re-issued notices

Earlier notices were not received due to mix-up in their addresses.

LAHORE:

The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Thursday reissued notices to Adviser to the Chief Minister Sirdar Zulfiqar Khan Khosa, Senator Pervez Rasheed and MNAs Khwaja Saad Rafique and Pervez Malik on a petition by former PML-N MPA Shumaila Rana seeking restoration of her assembly seat.

Justice Umar Ata Bandial issued the notice again as earlier notices could not be served due to confusion about the respondents’ addresses. The judge adjourned the hearing for July 8.

Rana had resigned from her assembly membership in July 2009, owing to party pressure after she was named in a credit card theft and misuse case. She was later acquitted of the charges.

Rana then filed the petition for the restoration of her membership and alleged that she had resigned under coercion.

Besides PML-N leaders, she had also made Punjab Assembly Speaker Rana Iqbal a party in the petition.

Rana’s counsel Azhar Hameed said that after the registration of the case, a committee was formed by the PML-N leadership consisting of Senator Pervez Rashid, MNA Pervez Malik, secretary to chief minister Muhammad Ajmal and Additional Law Secretary Naseem Sadiq.

She accused the party leaders of harassing her to resign from the seat. She said they had also sent armed men to her house to pressure her to resign. She said she signed the resignation letter because she felt she had no choice.

She said that the credit card theft case against her was fabricated and baseless. The media and the opposition parties had exaggerated the issue, she said.

She said that the PML-N leaders had threatened her and her family, forcing her to resign.

She said that the ‘false’ case and party pressure constituted mental torture and had damaged her reputation.

She said that her resignation letter was presented to the Punjab assembly speaker on July 25, 2009, by one of the PML-N members.

On March 1, 2010, she was acquitted of the charges.

She said that the speaker accepted a resignation which was not given to him in person. She said it was unlawful on his part to accept such a resignation. According to Rule 35 of the Procedure of Provincial Assembly Punjab 1997, the speaker should have conducted an inquiry before accepting the resignation, she said.

She requested the court to declare the Punjab Election Commission notification to de-notify her as an MPA illegal and direct the respondents to notify her as an MPA again.



Published in The Express Tribune, June 24^th, 2011.