Requisitioned NA session on Tuesday

Khawaja Asif says PML-N will take up political prisoners’ issues

ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly will meet on Tuesday for a session requisitioned by the opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) to discuss the post-budget developments and take up the issue of political prisoners.

The PML-N had requisitioned the session last week after the arrest of party’s Punjab President and National Assembly Member (MNA) Rana Sanaullah.

On Monday, Speaker Asad Qaiser summoned the session on Tuesday (today) at 2:00pm in the Parliament House.

Senior PML-N leader and lawmaker Khawaja Asif said that the party would raise the issues of political prisoners as well as the video leak of former accountability judge Arshad Malik.

"One judge has been sent back," Asif told a joint press conference along with former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi.

"Those who sent back the judge, reposed no-confidence in him," he said, adding that in such a situation, all the decisions of the judge also became null and void.

Asif said that the party would raise the issue of continued incarceration of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, because his conviction should have been cancelled after judge Malik was removed from his post.

“The PML-N believes in constitutional institutions like the judiciary and deserves justice,” said Asif.

“It is utter injustice that Nawaz is still behind bars while the judge who ruled against him has been deposed for being unreliable and compromised,” said the senior PML-N leader.

He said that the reputation of the judge and the authenticity of his decisions had become extremely questionable after the video leak, adding that the orders for the dismissal of the judge and the orders for the release of Nawaz should have been given simultaneously.

He said there was no legal or constitutional justification in keeping Nawaz imprisoned after the video evidence exposed the motives behind the “maligned decisions”.

“Under such circumstances cases are tried from scratch in the courts,” he said. “Keeping Nawaz in jail is tainting the credibility of the judiciary as he is being denied legal relief which should have automatically been given to him after the release of the video and dismissal of the accountability court judge.”