LHC bench to hear MPAs’ plea against speaker

PML-N’s 18 members face bar on attending proceedings over misconduct

LAHORE:

A Lahore High Court (LHC) division bench headed by Justice Shahid Bilal will hear a plea filed by PML-N lawmakers against Punjab Assembly Speaker Sibtain Khan’s barring 18 members from attending 15 sittings of the house.

The petition filed by the lawmakers has been marked to the bench for a hearing.

The speaker took the action over hampering the assembly proceedings on October 22 when former chief minister Sardar Usman Buzdar was presenting a resolution against the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) decision of disqualifying former prime minister Imran Khan.

Ten MPAs filed the petition requesting the court to declare the speaker’s order illegal. The petitioners also prayed to the court that the speaker’s election be declared void over an alleged violation of Rule 9 of Article 226 of the Constitution.

Sami Ullah Khan, Azma Bukhari and other MPAs filed the petition. They contended in the petition that the rumpus had been created by the members of the PTI and PML-Q after unruly remarks by Senior Minister Mian Aslam Iqbal and Fayyaz Chohan but the speaker, showing partiality, had unlawfully banned the entry of the PML-N lawmakers.

According to the notification issued by the assembly secretariat, the business of the assembly was severely hampered by the unruly and
grossly disorderly conduct of the lawmakers.