On Wednesday, the petition filed by Sardar Tanveer Ilyas against the disqualification order from the high court that stripped him of his position as the prime minister of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) was returned by the AJK Supreme Court.
The decision to disqualify Ilyas, who belongs to Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, was made by the AJK High Court on Tuesday, marking him as the first AJK premier to be disqualified in a contempt of court case.
Ilyas challenged the decision in the AJK top court through a plea that referred to him as the “AJK prime minister.” However, the registrar’s office of the court returned the plea, objecting to Ilyas’s title.
During the hearing, AJK Chief Justice Raja Saeed Akram criticized Ilyas’s lawyers for mentioning him as the “current prime minister,” and Ilyas’s lawyer requested to change it to “former prime minister.” The justice remarked that the high court’s ruling would stand, and Ilyas would be considered a former prime minister until the top court takes action.
The court instructed the lawyers to file a new plea, and the lawyers left to address the objections imposed on the plea.
Before the hearing, Ilyas’s lawyer argued that the Constitution had a proper procedure for disqualifying a premier, and that the Election Commission could not disqualify a prime minister without following that procedure. He also stated that the maximum penalty for contempt of court was six months.
The high court disqualified Ilyas after he was summoned to AJK’s Supreme Court and High Court for using a “threatening tone” in one of his speeches. Ilyas apologized to the court during the hearing and was sentenced till the rising of the court.
