LHC seeks NA speaker’s reply on PTI resignations

The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Friday sought replies from National Assembly (NA) Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf and others in a civil miscellaneous application challenging the speaker’s acceptance of resignations of 43 Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) lawmakers.

Justice Shahid Karim presided over the hearing in which the petitioners also requested the court to suspend the speaker’s notification through which their resignations had been accepted in order to be able to join the NA to be a part of parliamentary affairs.

Earlier, the same court had granted interim relief to the petitioner by suspending the de-notification of the petitioners restraining the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) from holding by-elections in those constituencies.

However, the court then had not entrained the “acceptance of resignations by the speaker” observing that the impugned notification through which resignations were accepted was not attached to the petition, therefore, the same could not be suspended.

The petitioner’s counsel, Barrister Ali Zafar, had contended that the said notification of the NA speaker was not available at the time of filing.

Zafar stated in the petition that now the said notification had been obtained and placed in the file accordingly, adding that as the de-notification of the ECP had been suspended by this court, the speaker’s notification (through which the resignations were accepted) was liable to be suspended so that the petitioners might be able to join the NA.

Earlier this month, following the LHC’s decision to suspend the ECP’s order de-notifying 43 PTI MNAs’s, Zafar had argued that resignations had been taken back before their acceptance.

He argued that under such a situation, how the speaker could accept the resignations, adding that accepting resignations without applying legal framework was tantamount to mocking the rules and proved mala fide on the part of the speaker.

Zafar had contended that the then-acting speaker (National Assembly Deputy Speaker Qasim Suri) had accepted resignations but the new speaker had reversed them.

Petition

The petition was filed by Muhammad Riaz Khan Fatyana contending the court that the resignations were subject to the acceptance of all 123 members of the NA. They sought directions to the quarters concerned to declare that the petitioners had withdrawn their resignation by conduct, words, and in writing in accordance with the law prior to any acceptance.

The petition added that after the withdrawal of the resignation, the speaker could not direct the issuance of any notification regarding acceptance of the resignations.

“The notifications issued by the NA speaker and the ECP are illegal and unlawful and the court is requested to set them aside,” the petition stated.